The Call of Reverie
by Sigma Sagittarii
Summary: The accepted story is that Walt made it all up. But the truth is that he found something bigger- a whole other world. A world that's always existed peacefully alongside ours. But a powerful magic threatens to tear apart the boundaries that separate the worlds and destroy everything and everyone in the process, and both worlds are going to have to work together to save them.
1. The Key

Chapter One - The Key

"It was a nice day. All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn't been invented yet. But clouds massing east of Eden suggested that the first thunderstorm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one."

- _Good Omens_

* * *

Jessi Marcelo woke up and her entire high school was gone.

The building, not the people. It had happened overnight, which was better because if it had happened in the day then who knows what would've happened to all the people in there, but it was still gone. Really gone. Literally, physically, completely gone. Like a big hand had come and grabbed it and just left an empty field behind. Nobody had even noticed it get removed, which was the weird part because somebody would've seen a fire or a bomb or something, even at night. But there was nothing left.

That's what the news report was saying, anyways. Jessi was sitting on the couch eating cereal straight out of the box, tearing up the little squares of shredded wheat and eating them one piece at a time. Her brother Herman was in his room upstairs calling his friends, which she knew because he was shouting. His school had been canceled, too, because the whole town didn't really know what to do in a situation like this. That was lucky for him, Jessi guessed, but she wasn't sure if that would last long. Meanwhile she got to brag that she wouldn't be returning to school indefinitely because her school building got wiped off the face of the planet. So it was still a victory on her end.

Her mother was on the phone, too, standing right there in the kitchen and watching the television set through the doorway. Probably calling the school board, as if they could do anything about it at this point. She looked worried, because she was often worried. She didn't seem to care much that Herman was yelling excitedly upstairs even though he was very nearly loud enough to drown out the television. Though they had been watching the television screen for several hours now, everything still felt like a dream. No one had discovered much of anything yet.

It was 11:45, give or take, and the police investigation hadn't really wrapped up but they'd left the field open to whoever because they hadn't found anything there, of course. So different news stations lingered around, still broadcasting, because this was the only news that'd ever really happened in their little town and maybe they expected the school to drop back out of the sky or something. Jessi didn't know. She wasn't even sure what the police had done, but early that morning around six or so when they'd woken up and turned on the news they'd seen the whole field taped off and covered in police dogs. They'd eliminated most options, though, because there was no trace left behind of anything and no way an entire building could just be displaced like that. Scientists somewhere were probably losing their minds over this whole thing.

Jessi set the box down on the floor (Frank, their lazy Boston Terrier, looked over in interest but didn't attempt to move from his dog bed) and then took the stairs two at a time into her room, getting dressed quickly and tugging a baseball cap over her long, black braid. She pulled on her ratty tennis shoes, the dirty white ones that she'd partially duct-taped back together without her mom knowing (Jessi disliked quite a few things, and breaking in new shoes was one of them) and pulled on a jacket. It was cloudy outside, like a storm was rolling in, which felt pretty fitting for the whole situation. But the sun was peeking out behind the clouds occasionally still so at least she wouldn't have to worry about rain yet.

Her phone only had two texts, both of which were from the same person because she only really had one friend. Jessi didn't mind admitting that. She just wasn't loud like Herman was. Her mother called her 'detached' and she guessed that was one word for it, though it wasn't as though Jessi didn't care about people. Optimism was just a hard emotion to work up to but people seemed to expect it immediately all the time as if she really cared about hearing how the school play was going or what somebody's new boyfriend was like. There were more important things to focus on than that, like graduating on time even though she skipped class at every opportunity.

Her friend's name was Clancy, and she looked like someone who cried when they got a B in their home economics class (which she did). She was slightly awkward but very friendly and whenever she came over they'd work on homework together and Clancy would talk softly about how pretty Jessi's hair was or her latest knitting project or something (Jessi didn't actually know if Clancy knitted or not, but it seemed like something she might do). It was alright, though she didn't have enough experience with close friendships to know if it was good by those standards. The two of them had met in middle school and Clancy had latched onto her, probably because Jessi didn't have any friends prior to that.

The texts weren't really anything of consequence- of _course_ she'd seen the school thing, it was on every news station- so she ignored them, tucking her phone into her back pocket and taking the stairs back down to the living room. Frank had his nose buried in the box of cereal, but Jessi's mother hadn't seemed to notice. The news channel on the screen was now interviewing random townsfolk who had come out to see, but no one had anything of consequence to say. No one had even really processed what had happened, much less formed actual theories about what was going on. They'd probably have more luck having scientists call in or something. Jessi supposed they were trying to get as much information as they could from the scene before some important organization came and forced everyone out so they could examine the dimensional wormhole that had swallowed up the school building. Or some other weird thing like that. Jessi wasn't a scientist.

"Going out to see the school," Jessi said at as low a volume as she could manage, poking her head around the doorway to the kitchen. Her mother arched her eyebrows and pulled the phone an inch or two away from her face for a second.

"Jessi, it isn't very safe-"

"Mom, there's like fifty news channels there. I won't even manage to get close enough for anything to happen if it does." Which was true, probably. And it wasn't as though she really thought anything would happen- it seemed a little late for it at this point. "I'm just going to check it out and then I'll be right back. Maybe you'll see me on T.V. or something." She shrugged.

Her mother pursed her lips, but after a half-second of studying Jessi's gaze she pulled the phone back towards her cheek. "Be quick." She had no real argument to stand on, anyways. Jessi knew that both of them were fully aware that there was no explanation for this, or at least not one that put anyone in real danger.

Still, Jessi thought it was strange how much her mother seemed to worry about her poking her nose into everything. She didn't purposefully get involved in much of anything- nothing ever happened in Salt River to begin with, and she lacked what her mother called 'drive'. Jessi took that to mean 'enthusiasm' or 'the ability to care about much', which just made it all the more hypocritical that her mother worried about her safety when she never did anything stupid like Herman did with his tendency to jump his bike off of hills and break bones jumping off of roofs just to prove he could stick a landing. Jessi's mother seemed to worry about her in general, though. Maybe it was just something mothers did once their kid hit eighteen.

Jessi gave a lazy salute, backing out of the garage door. Her bike's front tire was about half-flat, but it was fine enough to ride. They lived in the middle of a street in a pretty small neighborhood about a ten minute walk from the school and a ten minute car ride from the main part of town. There were empty fields stretching around the edges of the neighborhood, and a variety of small creeks that branched out from the river on the far edge of the town. The place was named after said river- Salt River. Jessi's mother often said it wasn't even really a town, it was more of a community because of how small it was, and while Jessi didn't really know how populations worked or impacted the classification of a city she was inclined to agree with that assessment.

Jessi hadn't lived there her whole life, but she'd lived there for most of it. They'd moved when Herman was born (when Jessi was seven), and he was eleven now, so Jessi didn't really have many memories of wherever they'd lived before. The rest of their family still lived back in the old city, which was in Philadelphia, but they visited occasionally so Jessi didn't mind that much. She didn't have many aunts or uncles or cousins to speak of anyways so there was no real loss. She hadn't thought about where she was moving for college, though. She hadn't thought much about college at all, despite the fact that she was graduating at the end of the year.

In a way, the school disappearing was some sort of blessing. There wasn't any sort of future planning to get caught up in when the whole world seemed to be on hold. She wondered how long it would be until the government and scientists and big news companies came by and overran the whole town. It was strange how detached she felt, even in the face of something this big. Herman felt the same, or at least Jessi thought he did, given that he seemed more excited about missing school than the fact that the school _was_ missing. Maybe it just didn't seem real. Everything was just floating because how could normal life continue when something didn't make any sense? How did people in _The Twilight Zone_ usually respond to these things?

The path to the school was quick, running alongside nothing but fields for the most part. Normally Jessi would've been able to spot the school from a few minutes away, but today there was nothing but another empty space. The news vans were the most noticeable thing in the area. There were a couple more of them now, hanging around waiting for something to drop out of the sky or maybe just waiting to see if the people would disappear next.

Disembarking from her bike, Jessi leaned it up against a tree a ways back from the field, taking care to make sure no one saw her leave it. Not that there'd been a problem with bike thieves in the past, but news like this could bring anybody into town. Including notorious bike thieves.

It was hard to get through the barricade of reporters, or at least enough to see anything. Jessi found herself weaving through various vans and pushing aside people milling around and spectating the field. They all crowded around the edges mostly, as if afraid of stepping into the space where the school had once been. One or two teenagers had moved over to the center of the field, though. They probably thought they were showing off, or maybe they just wanted to be sure they were on camera. No one was really watching them and even the cameras weren't focused on them. It felt as though there was a strange mix of danger and safety. The field was too dangerous for the reporters to move to directly but not so dangerous that a couple of kids couldn't go and run around in it. It was really just a normal field, all things considered. The danger was from the unknown.

Jessi tried to pick her way closer, but was stopped suddenly as a camera was shoved into her face.

"Excuse me, young lady," said the reporter standing next to the camera, and Jessi turned over her shoulder to glance down at her. Jessi was the tallest person in her family, and significantly taller than average otherwise, so it was a bit awkward given how short the reporter was. "Do you attend school here?"

"I did, yeah," said Jessi.

" _Did_?" The reporter pressed.

"I mean, the school's gone."

"You don't think it will come back?"

"I don't know. I don't even know how it left in the first place."

"I see," said the reporter, who for some reason didn't seem thrilled with Jessi's honesty. "And how is this going to affect the rest of your school year?"

"Guess I just won't graduate on time," Jessi said. It was only November, though, so it was a bit too early to say if she'd be graduating on time to begin with even if the school hadn't disappeared.

"And you don't have any idea what happened here?"

"No," said Jessi. "Do you have any idea what happened here?"

The reporter didn't respond, and instead turned to catch the attention of another townsperson who had pushed their way through the crowd to ogle the empty field. Jessi, glad for the interruption, slipped around the cameraman to jog past the other reporters.

She wasn't sure what she expected when she crossed the threshold of the school. Or the place the school had been, rather. It was almost hard to tell what with everything being gone, even the sidewalks, but her feet knew the path into the building well enough that if she didn't focus on the grass at her feet she could almost imagine the walls surrounding her. The teens further out across the field were doing cartwheels, ignoring both Jessi and the crowd of reporters and spectators. A couple other townsfolk, most of them younger, cautiously ran out several seconds after Jessi did, encouraged by the bravery of the other teenagers.

Jessi didn't really have any plan as she wandered. She tried to map out the place her classrooms would have been, the spot her locker was in, but it got harder to tell the more she walked aimlessly. More and more individuals found their way over to the empty space, too, and slowly the strangeness of it all faded. It was just an empty field full of people, really, even if those people were only together in the same place because the fabric of reality was coming undone.

With the spell broken and her interest in the situation satisfied, Jessi turned to look past the reporters circling around the field and all the other cars and bikes pulling in. She could barely see her own bike hidden in the treeline, and with a vaguely unsatisfied feeling of confusion she meandered her way back towards it.

Or she started in that direction, at least. She only got a few steps in before something at her feet caught her eye. It was something bronze that glinted dully in the sunlight that was breaking through the oncoming clouds. Nudging it with the toe of her shoe, Jessi bent down to scoop it into her palm. It was a key- an old-fashioned one, nothing that would be used for any sort of modern-day lock. It was scratched up and worn, but surprisingly not very dirty.

Scanning the field around her, Jessi searched the grass for anything else that may have been left behind, but nothing caught her eye immediately. No one else in the field seemed to be seeing anything, either, even though most of them had their eyes fixated on the ground around them. Maybe they were trying to ignore the fact that there used to be walls in the place they were walking.

Jessi stood there for a second or two, looking at the key in her hand. She felt vaguely excited, just for a moment- excited and perhaps a bit smug. Either this had been left behind by the school or the school had been built on top of it, she thought, and she was the one who found it. None of the reporters seemed to have noticed, or else they just didn't care that she had picked something up, because none of them were moving in her direction. She thought for a moment what someone should do in a situation like this. Did people usually turn old keys into antique stores or something? Salt River probably didn't even have one of those.

After a moment of consideration, Jessi tucked the key into the pocket of her jacket and all but sprinted back across the field to her bike.

The roads were busy on her way home, or at least busier than they had been on the way there and far busier than she'd seen them before. By then most of the news teams who could get there in a reasonable amount of time were already there, so it was mostly people from outside of the city coming to see. As if their physical presence would make the situation any different. Maybe they just wanted to take family photos in front of the empty field where a school once stood. At least if it never came back Salt River would have something to bring tourists in. They'd probably put a museum or something there, if they were smart.

By the time she got back to the house her mother had switched from one news station to another, a national channel that was interviewing people who might know what was going on. Important scientists and things like that. Apparently more were heading directly to the scene, but Jessi didn't really know what they expected to find. The guy on the television sounded like he was making a lot of baseless theories from nothing- things that only sounded legitimate because he used long and complicated words.

"Did you see me on the news?" Jessi asked as she walked through the front door. Her mother was on her phone still, though she was sprawled across the couch now rather than standing in the kitchen. She was texting someone rather than calling.

"No," her mother responded, hardly glancing up.

Jessi shrugged. "They didn't ask me much, anyways." And she couldn't blame them. What was there to ask? Nobody knew anything.

"Wait, what?" Herman poked his head out of the kitchen- or, more accurately, out of the fridge where he'd been scavenging for food. "You got on the news?"

"There's a million reporters down there," Jessi said. " _Everybody's_ on the news."

Herman stared at her for a second as if trying to judge how serious she was, and then put a bag of ham back in the fridge. "Mom, can I go down to the school?"

"If Jessi will go with you," said their mother. Her worry for Jessi paled in comparison to her worry for Herman, which was fair. He was only eleven and he was a magnet for trouble.

"What? I just got back," Jessi protested.

"See if Clancy will go with you," her mother suggested. "You two can talk while Herman bothers the reporters."

"I'm not gonna bother them," Herman said, but he was grinning. "I'm just gonna make sure I get their attention."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll manage."

Jessi groaned under her breath, but conceded. She didn't mind going back that much, anyways, and she and her brother got along for the most part. It was just the principle of the thing- he easily could've gone with her earlier. But maybe Herman would find something like the key or maybe some scientist had shown up with real results.

"Let me text her," Jessi said, bounding her way back up the stairs.

Clancy agreed, of course, though it took some convincing on Jessi's part because Clancy wasn't sure how safe it was. She'd been watching the news religiously since that morning, same as everyone else, and it'd only increased her anxiety about the situation. Jessi pointed out that with all those people there nothing could really happen, and at this point it was one in the afternoon, several hours after the school had initially disappeared. If something wasn't happening now then it wasn't going to happen at all. Clancy decided to just meet them there, as she could drive (Jessi kept failing her driving test) and it was easier than biking. She lived twenty minutes or so away from Jessi and Herman, so Jessi couldn't blame her for that.

Before she went back downstairs, Jessi dug through the drawers in her closet for a while before pulling out a bronze necklace. The charm that hung on the end was a simple 'J', something she'd gotten for a birthday when she was younger. Unhooking the clasp, she slipped the key onto the chain with the charm. It was large enough that the charm rested perfectly in the loop of the key, and the colors matched well. Satisfied, she hooked it around her neck.

The ride back to the school was as uneventful as Jessi's first trip there, though they had to avoid traffic this time around. The two of them raced most of the way there on their bikes and made it within a reasonable amount of time. Clancy's car was parked far back from the field, out of the way of all the other cars pulling into the area. A circle was starting to have formed around the perimeter of the school, though the field was filling in with people at this point.

"I'm gonna go get on the news," Herman said as soon as their bikes were leaning up against Clancy's car, and he took off running towards the cameras.

Clancy smiled, watching him go. Her curly blonde hair was pulled back by a headband. "Guess he's got a goal in mind, huh?"

"That was the whole reason he wanted to come down here," Jessi said. "It's not like he's even got anything useful to say if they interview him."

"He's excited, I guess," Clancy shrugged. "You have to admit, Salt River isn't exactly the most exciting place to live. Might as well get his five seconds of fame while he's got the chance."

"Sure, fame," said Jessi. "If you want to call it that."

Clancy laughed, not at all put off by Jessi's unenthused attitude. Jessi was quiet for a moment as the two of them started dodging various others trying to get closer to the school, meandering closer aimlessly. She ran her fingers over the key hanging from her necklace, looking at Clancy out of the corner of her eye. She wanted to ask her about it, just so someone knew, even though Jessi didn't think it was anything that really mattered that much. But the air around them was filled with the noise of other people's conversations and she was certain her voice would be drowned out.

They stayed like that for a while, weaving in and out of various townsfolk and visitors on the edge of the circle. It was a strange feeling, knowing how many strangers were here just to stare at something that had become their new reality within several hours. Clancy occasionally asked her questions, sometimes about theories and other times just about what she'd been doing recently even though they'd just seen each other at school last Friday. Jessi was half-distracted, thinking of the key and trying to keep an eye on Herman. Or, rather, an ear on Herman, because he was chattering excitedly to any camera he could find, loud enough to be heard over the other conversations going on around them. At some point Herman had moved into the center of the field, where a couple news teams had ventured. He was pointing out various rooms, or whenever the rooms would've been. Jessi didn't even think he really knew what he was talking about, but he had the confidence to convince everyone that he did.

Jessi turned away from looking in Herman's direction and instead faced Clancy, who had just asked a question that Jessi hadn't quite heard entirely. She was about to speak, but then… something shifted.

It was hard to pinpoint what it was at first. It seemed like a great deal happened in a very short moment, as though time had slowed to a crawl for that brief second. There was a strange noise, like a tearing or a buzzing or a hum (Jessi couldn't even place which one it was specifically, but it was overwhelming and yet muted as though merely a background noise to the reality of the situation). The air around them grew still, and then there was a great rush of motion in the wind and sky around them.

Clancy's face held a look of shock, and then of horror, and she cried out. She was the first to do so, but then the others in the area joined her. Jessi, alarmed, turned back over her shoulder in time to look to the center of the field that was now entirely empty. Herman was gone. All of them were gone, the whole group that had been within the school building's walls, or lack of walls.

She barely had time to process this fact before several other reporters, closer to the area where the school had once been, suddenly weren't there anymore.

Jessi couldn't describe how it happened. They were standing there and then they weren't. There was just a space where they had been. For a moment one or two had yelled in surprise, though Jessi wasn't sure if it was in response to the previous disappearances of because they felt something, and their stance had shifted nearly imperceptibly as though bracing for a fall and then they were gone.

Something in Jessi screamed to run, but her feet wouldn't move in time and she reached out with one hand to grasp for Clancy, who had already backed away, frightened and confused. Jessi instead brought her hand up to her necklace, where she clasped the key in a fist.

The townsfolk standing three feet in front of her disappeared.

Jessi wondered how much of this was broadcasting and if her mother had seen Herman disappear. She wanted to take her phone out to call her but there wasn't any time, her brain was moving much faster than the reality of time around them and in the next instant the sky clouded with a strange darkness and a great noise rushed into Jessi's ears all at once. She felt the ground shift away below her and her stomach dropped and then it all just seemed to be... gone.

* * *

AN: Alright, I've got a whole ton to say here, so bear with me because this will hopefully answer some questions you guys likely have and also give you some information you're probably going to want to hear. Cool? Cool.

So first of all, thanks for reading! I've had this idea in mind for a while but couldn't commit myself to spending the time to write it because I have a million other Actual Writing Projects to tackle. But it's all in good fun, I guess, and if anybody enjoys reading it then it's worth writing. So here we are.

Secondly, I apologize for the format of this chapter- it was necessary in order to properly establish, firstly, the regular world, and secondly, Jessi (as well as a couple other important characters who she'll be pretty focused on for a good chunk of the story). I promise, we're kicking off the next chapter by getting things actually moving, and hopefully it'll be out within a week. That's my goal, here: a chapter every week. No promises, of course, because of those previously mentioned Actual Writing Projects, but I'm sure gonna try.

So some of you likely saw in the description that this is a SYOC story. And it is- it's open indefinitely, meaning there's no cap on it because these OCs have a whole lot of roles to fill. Based on the quality of the description you send in or just how interested I am in the character in general, most will fall into tertiary or background roles, but some might get genuinely fleshed-out secondary character roles.

As you can guess from this chapter, the basic premise of this narrative is that things (and people) from the regular world are getting pulled into another world. So any character description you submit ought to explain how they fit into the regular world and how you envision them fitting into Disney once they're pulled through.

There's going to be a basic form in the next chapter, as well as some of the questions I'm looking for. Of course, feel free to PM me if you have very specific ideas in mind or just want to know more about the world. I can't spoil everything right away, but I can help out some. And if I have questions about characters you send in, I'll ask you, too. A basic rule of thumb is that the more detailed they are in terms of personality and motivations, the easier it will be for me to find a place for them in this story. I don't want to restrict anyone in regards to their ideas.

The possibilities will become more clear in future chapters, of course, and as I said there's no timeline or guidelines. So go wild.

All that aside, please feel free to leave feedback on how you feel it's going thus far. Much more will be explained as we move forward, but I hope it's a foundation that's at least caught your interest.


	2. The Circle

Chapter Two - The Circle

"You don't get explanations in real life. You just get moments that are absolutely, utterly, inexplicably odd."

- _Neil Gaiman_

* * *

The light behind Jessi's closed eyelids was a blinding white, or so she figured. She woke with a pounding headache that made squinting her eyes painful, but when she tried to keep them closed lightly the white seeped in under her eyelashes and stung painfully.

The rest of her body was in pain, too, though it was more of a persistent ache that ran up and down it than it was a sharp stinging. She twitched her fingers and her toes, turning her head side to side, and was relieved to find she could at least move. It didn't feel as though she had any tubes running into her, so she couldn't be in that bad of shape. It was probably just a case of having been asleep for far too long, and she shifted her weight tenderly to see if anything felt broken, but that seemed fine as well. It felt as though she'd fallen a great distance, which made sense when she thought about it further. It had seemed like she was falling, back in the field.

The field. The school. Clancy. Herman.

Jessi shot bolt-upright and then cried out in pain as her back and ribs protested loudly, aching so sharply that she bent over and rested her head on her knees. Her headache was momentarily relieved due to the pressure as she pushed her forehead against her knees with force, but the ache was slow in fading and for a while her breathing was deep and she hissed through her teeth every time a throb ran through her torso. The light still stung her eyes, and she found it difficult to keep them open long enough to look around. It was like snow on a sunny day. She couldn't stand it.

Blindly, she felt around her and realized she was on a bed with metal railings along the side. Like a hospital bed, which made sense enough in her mind for some reason or another. Maybe the ground had opened up and she'd fallen in and there was a moleman civilization underneath the field and they'd taken her to a hospital. It made as much sense as anything else that had happened that day. She wished she could chalk it up to a bad dream but sometimes you just know you aren't dreaming, and you get the feeling of dread that something has happened that you can't go back from. The entire day felt like that.

If it was even the same day anymore. She figured it was daytime, because the sun was making the place so unbearable, but who knew how long it had been since the events of that afternoon.

Jessi grasped onto the railing on one side of her bed and slowly attempted to pull herself off of it, but it made her ribs and shoulders hurt just trying it and she instead sat there blinking through squinted eyes, running a hand over her face. Her forehead was sweaty and she realized that she had covers over her legs, which was no doubt contributing to the heat. She shifted them off of her and flexed her toes. She was still wearing the same outfit she'd worn before, and when she looked down through squinted eyes she was relieved to find the key was still around her neck. The weight was familiar, at this point.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" A sudden voice startled her enough to jump slightly, which her body protested. They were shouting, too, or at least it sounded like shouting in the echo of the room she was in. Her head pounded as she heard thumps against the floor and suddenly the voice was next to her bed, on her left side near her elbow. "Whad'ya think you're doin'?"

"What?" Said Jessi, but her mouth was more dry than she realized and it ended up sounding like it was full of cotton so the result was more of a garbled, "whrbfgh?"

"You need to lie down! I told Terminus to- _Terminus_!" The voice shouted, and then stomped off elsewhere.

 _Stop shouting_ , Jessi thought crossly, but she'd managed to open her eyes long enough to realize that her vision was very blurry and she was just trying to stay upright without giving into dizziness so she couldn't manage the words. A wave of nausea hit her just for a moment and she squinted her eyes tightly, curling in on herself more until it subsided. The pounding had spread to her ears just from the shouting of whoever had been in the room previously.

Several seconds went by before Jessi's vision returned to her enough to look around the room. She was, in fact, on a hospital bed, sitting directly opposite a long wall with large windows. Most of the curtains were closed, but hers had been opened. All she could see outside was clouds and the glaring sunlight, which explained why it had been such a pain to open her eyes. On either side of her there were more rows of hospital beds, most of which had curtains between them for privacy. The rest of the room was empty. Next to her bed there was a tray with a pair of reading glasses and a half-finished cup of water, which Jessi took and stuck her finger in (if only to confirm it was actually water and not rubbing alcohol or something else she'd greatly regret) before sipping carefully. It didn't ease the dryness of her mouth very much, but it was something.

The thumping of feet signaled someone returning, and Jessi turned and craned her stiff neck over her shoulder to watch the doorway as they entered.

The person who entered first looked briefly surprised to see her sitting up, but then it switched to a smug look of pride. He wore a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a red vest over it. The rest of his outfit was equally pristine, all the way down to the gloves on his hands. His mustache was curled at the ends and he wore a top hat. Jessi got the impression that he was the type to _always_ wear a top hat.

The second person who entered was a rabbit.

Not a small, normal sort of a rabbit. A rabbit standing up on two legs. A rabbit wearing _pants_. Or shorts, maybe. It was hard to tell with the way its legs were shaped. They were too noodle-like, and it made Jessi's joints ache just looking at them for too long so instead she tried to pry her eyes elsewhere, though they wouldn't quite obey. She was hallucinating, surely. Or dreaming after all. Or she really was in _The Twilight Zone_. That wasn't even the strangest thing about his appearance, though. She could tell from looking at him that he was somehow _different_ from the man in the top hat, and different from herself, but she couldn't explain how. Her first thought was that he was too cartoonish in the way he moved, the way he looked, but looking between the two of them she couldn't really separate them into two different types of realities. It was unsettling, that sort of strangeness that she couldn't put to words. She was spared from thinking further on the matter in the next moment, however.

"Ah!" said the man in the top hat, with exaggerated surprise, throwing his hands up into the air. "She's awake! A miracle!"

The rabbit fumed silently for a second, crossing his arms tightly. His strange, strange noodle arms. Jessi noticed blearily that his hands appeared far too large for them, something that would have looked vaguely horrific if he didn't have that cartoon-like otherworldliness to his appearance. "You were supposed to be watching her until the professor got back!" Jessi realized as he spoke that he was the one who'd been in the room previously. "And you sure weren't in here when I came in!"

"Watching her? _I_ was under the impression I was brought in to _cure_ her." The top-hatted man placed a hand on his chest in an offended manner. His movements were way too exaggerated and obviously insincere. He was either a very good actor or a very bad conman.

"Brought in? I didn't want you here! You haven't done a single thing to help us since you got here! In fact, you're _only_ here because you were trying to scam us out of-"

"Foolish of you to turn down the help of a genuine, certified doctor, you know."

"Genuine?" The rabbit scoffed. " _Certified_?"

"Doctor, yes," the man with the mustache took the liberty of finishing for him.

Jessi couldn't be certain, but it felt as though her headache was worsening just having to listen to their bickering. But it didn't end. The man was still talking.

"-Especially considering _I'm_ the one who cured her. With this," with a flourish, he pulled a small flask out of the pocket of his vest and presented it to the rabbit, who looked skeptical.

"No you didn't."

"Of course I did. Look," the man leaned down closer to the rabbit's level and pointed at the label of the flask, reading it aloud. "Doctor Terminus' Miracle Cure-all. What else could explain her abrupt recovery, hm?"

The rabbit stared at it for a second before swiping the flask from his hand and taking a swig, despite the man's cut-off protest. He screwed up his face and shoved it back in Terminus' (Jessi assumed that was the man's name, at least) grip immediately afterwards.

"Whiskey?" The rabbit spat. "You gave a kid whiskey?"

"I'm eighteen," said Jessi, because that was the first part of the conversation that made sense enough for her to jump in. The whiskey would explain her burning throat and dry mouth, she guessed. She wasn't really great with alcohol, not that she was supposed to be drinking it at her age anyways, though she didn't even recall being awake previously to take a sip of said alcohol. The rabbit turned to glance at her, but Terminus just puffed up indignantly.

"How dare you. First you stick me here _all alone_ \- without _Hoagy_ \- and expect me to work for no pay, and then you won't even thank me for saving a dying patient in grave condition-"

"She wasn't dying," the rabbit protested, and then he must have noticed the briefly panicked expression on Jessi's face because he quickly turned to reassure her, hands raised placatingly. "You weren't dying! You were just out for a few days."

"Days?" Asked Jessi, though it was barely a squeak as her throat closed up and her breath grew short. She fought a wave of lightheadedness. "How many days?"

The rabbit made an uncertain noise, wobbling a hand back and forth, and she just glared at him. He withered slightly underneath the gaze for a brief moment before shrugging. "Three? Four? It's getting hard to keep track of time in here."

Jessi hardly heard him after that. Craning her gaze away from the two of them, she peered out the window in front of her listlessly. Her eyes couldn't focus on anything again and her chest felt tight, even beneath the soreness of her ribs. Was this what panic felt like? She'd been panicked before, of course, when she was younger. One camping trip they'd had a bear right outside their tent in the campsite and that had been terrifying. She'd nearly been hit by a car on a few occasions because she never looked before she crossed the street and often underestimated the speed of moving vehicles. But the thought of her mother at home worrying about where she was and the fact that _she_ didn't even know where she was and there was a shirtless talking rabbit here and Herman-

Herman.

"Where's Herman?" She asked suddenly, and panic gave way to frustration and barely-stifled fury. She'd been brought here, clearly, and she was the only one which meant that either the others weren't injured or they weren't here at all. "Where's my brother?"

"Brother?" The rabbit asked meekly.

"Yes, my _brother_ ," Jessi spat, and in her fear and anger she launched herself off of the bed, ignoring the protests of the rabbit. Terminus had long since stormed out of the room. Her whole upper body protested the movement, as well, but it felt good to be on her own two feet again even if the room did dip and turn dangerously for a second or two. "He's this big-" she held a hand out to her side, trying to judge his height. "And he's got messy hair, same color as me, and brown eyes and he's missing a tooth."

"Look, it's a lot to explain-"

"I don't care! My entire school disappeared and Herman and Clancy are missing and I want to know where they are. Tell me what's going on. Right now." It felt nice, almost, to have something to latch onto. Someone to direct her rage to. The anger clouded her mind enough to take her focus away from the pain she was in and the fear she felt seeping into her chest.

The rabbit looked guilty, or at least as guilty as a rabbit _could_ look (and it was strange how expressive he was, given that Jessi had no prior experience in reading the emotions of rabbits). "I don't know where they are exactly," he said carefully, and Jessi felt the sudden urge to punch him in the face but she couldn't move from her spot because her feet felt like lead. "But we can help you find them. We just need you to explain _everything_ you know, and then we'll explain, too. Deal?"

Jessi was silent, staring at him. She didn't want to sit down and hand out information when Herman and Clancy had been dragged into some kind of freaky void and were now missing and had been for _days_ , apparently, assuming anyone was telling the truth about how long Jessi had been here. She wanted to know where she was and what they'd done to bring her here. She wanted to get home immediately. She wanted to know why he was a walking, talking _rabbit_ and why the other man just seemed to accept that without any sort of questions.

But the rabbit seemed to read all of that behind the fury in her eyes. "My brother's missing too," he offered, and though it felt like some sort of consolation or pity to Jessi there was none of that in his tone. "And I dunno where he is, either, but I know how we can find him. And your brother. And everybody, okay? I just need you to help me. Please."

"Why?" Jessi demanded. "You do it. Or go find someone else to do it, I don't even know where I am or how I got here."

The rabbit shook his head. "We're the only ones from our world who ended up here. Me and Terminus and the professor. And _you're_ the only one from your world who ended up here. Whoever else got taken with you- they're out there," he gestured out the window, and Jessi turned to look at the neverending clouds. "Think it had to do with that key you've got on. But we don't know everything, and we think maybe you can help us figure it out."

Jessi looked at the key, and then back to the window, and then at the rabbit. The aching in her head hadn't quite subsided but her vision was clear enough to understand that the white of the room was suffocating and the thought of it all made frustrated tears threaten to spring to her eyes, but she forced them back. Whatever was going on, he'd promised her explanations. She didn't have anything else to lose, not really. Just more time and maybe more of her sanity, but it was starting to feel like all of that was slipping away. She'd already lost so much time and all of reality seemed to be falling apart in a much more real way than it had back when the school disappeared, which felt like hours ago but had apparently been days. She took a shuddering breath in.

"Fine," she said. "But you're going to tell me _everything_."

Thirty-five minutes later, give or take, Jessi was seated at one end of a very long table in a very fancy dining hall. There was no food on the table, thankfully, because the thought of eating anything made her stomach churn again. The chairs were padded and all, but they were pretty short- in fact the table was just short in general, even though the ceiling stretched above them for dozens of feet. Terminus was at the other end, seeming generally uninterested. Jessi wondered if he'd voluntarily showed up or if the others dragged him in. They didn't seem to get along much at all. The rabbit was standing across the room next to a large chalkboard that was currently being written on by one more figure, the last one to enter. Said figure just happened to be a Disney character, a fact that made Jessi's head hurt so badly that she was just trying very hard to ignore him and instead focused on the grain pattern of the table they were seated at.

The rabbit had explained very little on the way there. But for one thing, his name was Oswald, which Jessi supposed was as good of a name for a rabbit as any. He'd lead her out of the medical room and into a vast hallway that seemed to be tall enough for giants, and then she hadn't been able to follow the rest of the path they'd taken because every hallway looked the same and the white walls and brightly colored rugs just made her eyes hurt. She'd thought she'd seen a walking broom at one point but dismissed it as a hallucination because she didn't want to think about how else it would be real otherwise. At one point they'd passed by a garden, the edges of which were surrounded by a bright fog just like the clouds she'd seen from the windows of the medical room. It was like the entire place was just suspended in a cloud. For all she knew, it was. He'd told her that she was in a castle- Disney castle, which Jessi had thought was a joke at first. But then he'd taken her to the dining hall and there was a duck there that looked oddly familiar and Jessi realized that, no, he hadn't been joking at all. He was serious. Dead serious.

She had a cup of tea in front of her that was too bitter to drink, but she kept denying offers for sugar or milk anyways. She just didn't like tea to begin with and somehow she didn't think she'd be able to keep anything down. Oswald and the duck were discussing something under their breaths together currently, so Jessi was focusing on literally anything else just so her brain didn't break entirely. She chose to look at Terminus, who was filing his nails down on the far end of the table and still looking like he didn't want to be there at all.

She only vaguely recognized the duck standing across the room, and the more she thought about it the more she realized she couldn't even say where she had seen him before. But his design was familiar enough that she knew him to be a Donald Duck clone- or, well, family member, whatever they went with. She knew she could have recognized Donald himself and maybe even his uncle, the rich one, but this duck didn't look quite like either of them. His grey hair (feathers?) stuck out from the side of his head in a very Einstein-like manner and he had spectacles on the bridge of his… bill? He wore a lab coat, too, as if the image of a mad scientist wasn't the first thing that popped her mind at the sight of him to begin with. She was sure she'd seen him before but most cartoons blended together in her mind. She'd never been big on Disney and neither had Herman. She got by with passing knowledge of most important movies, she guessed, but anything else was lost on her.

Jessi took another sip of the very bitter tea, made a face, and set the cup back down. Her mind had long since faded into a state of dull acceptance. Or maybe just confusion. Either way, she was grateful her subconscious was letting her roll with this strange turn of events long enough to at least gather information about what was going on. She felt somehow responsible in doing so, anyways, since apparently she was the only one who'd arrived to this castle. If nothing else she could relay it back to everyone when she got back and then get put into therapy for speaking nonsense about ducks and rabbits. She could have said it was just like Alice in Wonderland if that weren't so painfully on the nose.

"So!" said Oswald suddenly, clapping his hands together. Jessi glanced over with half-hearted interest towards the duo standing by the chalkboard, wondering if he was finally done chatting to the duck about whatever was so important they couldn't share it with the others. "I think we all have a lot to talk about and time is working against us. Professor," he glanced at the wild-haired duck, and then gestured to Jessi, who he'd exchanged names with in the hallway, "this is Jessi. Jessi, this is-"

"I know him," Jessi interrupted. She didn't even think about it, it just jumped off of her tongue as soon as the window presented itself. She couldn't stop thinking about how familiar he looked and it bothered her and she needed some kind of answer for that before she could think about anything else. "He's- he looks like a Disney character. This is ridiculous." The whole thing was just ridiculous and nonsensical and it shouldn't have been possible and it didn't make any sense. If their town was going to get pulled through a gap in space-time or... whatever was going on, it probably should've just wiped them out entirely. Not taken her to a Disney movie. It was the least probable option in the universe.

Oswald laughed a little uncomfortably, looking between the two of them with shifty eyes. The duck didn't even seem to notice that Oswald had stopped talking to him, because he was still working away at the chalkboard with vigor. "I mean, so am I, but you didn't say anything about that…"

Jessi stared at Oswald. He had the design of a cartoon, sure (that had to be why he looked so strange in a way she couldn't quite place earlier), but he didn't look even remotely familiar. Not one of the big mascots, anyways. Not a mouse of a duck or a… whatever Goofy was. She squinted after a second or two, shaking her head slightly. This was where she was, she figured. Stuck acting like a bunch of cartoon animals were like celebrities or something.

He stared in return, looking slightly upset at first and then just a tinge desperate. "What, you recognized _him_ but not me? I was in a video game! Several of them!"

"I don't remember his name or anything, but yeah," she said, slightly awkward with how disappointed he seemed. She glanced down the table, caught sight of Terminus again, and pointed in his direction, feeling a sudden need to justify herself, or maybe just to stop Oswald from being upset because that would be wildly inconvenient when she was trying to get information from him. "I don't recognize him, either. I'm not- we just don't own that many Disney movies, just the classics." She thought that it was strange that they seemed to know about their existence as cartoon characters in another world.

"I _am_ a classic!" Oswald wailed, disappointment giving way to frustration. "I'm Mickey's brother!"

At the same time, Terminus waved a hand dismissively (though not without an overly dramatic eye roll that Jessi could spot even from all the way down the length of the table). " _No_ one watches my movie anymore."

At least one of them was handling the situation matter-of-factly. Jessi chose not to ask how a rabbit could be related to a mouse or how Oswald had stayed out of the spotlight for so long with a relation like whole situation felt more and more absurd as it stretched on, and she found herself just in silent disbelief over the whole thing all over again. Jessi, who was very quickly becoming even more confused and fed up with everyone in the room than she had been before, was somehow very grateful that the duck then chose that time to turn around from his chalkboard.

"Alright!" He looked at Jessi, and then at Oswald, who was tugging lightly on one of his ears out of stress. "Oswald, what are you doing up here? You aren't a part of the lecture! Sit down, go, go, sit!"

"But-" Oswald protested, still wanting to list his many media appearances to make absolutely sure Jessi didn't recognize him, but the duck physically started shoving him towards a chair.

"What, you gonna call the professor to explain the- all of the- you gonna call him to explain everything and then not listen? Is that what you wanna do?"

"I was just gonna introduce you!"

"Introduce _me_? I does the introducing around here! Now, let's see. You-" the duck squinted down the table towards Terminus and then scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. "Bah. I know you. _You_ -" this time he squinted at Jessi. "You… you, ah…"

"I already told you," said the now-seated Oswald, who looked even more frustrated now that he'd been shoved into a chair. He had his legs crossed, one arm propped up on the table and supporting his head. One foot was tapping impatiently. "You wouldn't recognize her. She's from the real world."

"The real world?" Cried the professor, and Oswald looked about two seconds away from just giving the whole thing up entirely, but then the duck laughed. "Of course! Of course I know that. That's what I'm giving the lecture about. Why're you even here if you're just going to tell me all the things I'm going to tell you? Now then. _I_ am professor Ludwig Von Drake." He turned around to his chalkboard, scrawling his name across what may or may not have been something important. "And today we- hm." He suddenly seemed to realize that he'd written his name over some of his own notes, and went about rewriting said notes down on a free space of the board, holding up one hand. "Give me just a second here."

"I already told him what you told me," Oswald informed Jessi while this was going on. She'd recounted everything she knew about the situation during their trip to the dining hall, which wasn't much. Just the school disappearing and then everything that had followed, from her first trip there to everyone at the scene vanishing in front of her eyes. "So believe me, this is already as short as it's gonna get with him."

Jessi wasn't sure if he expected her to thank him for that, but she nodded anyways, mimicking his position and cupping her chin in one hand. Sitting in a school lecture taught by a duck was one of the least strange things to happen to her in recent memory, she supposed.

Von Drake took a half-step back from the board once he was done, nodded to himself, and dusted off his hands as he set the chalk down. "Alrighty," he said, turning on a heel, and Jessi vaguely thought that the way he rolled his r's was going to annoy her very quickly. "Which of you can tell me what this is?" He jabbed a feathered finger at a drawing on the board. It was a big circle with two circles inside of it, and it looked to Jessi like a drawing of the earth, one that showed the crust and the mantle and the core.

"A circle," said Terminus from the end of the table, very unhelpfully. Jessi had half a mind to just throw her teacup at him if he spoke up again, which she supposed would truly be testament to how mad this place was already driving her. Or maybe just how exasperating he was acting. She didn't really want to pass judgement on her mental state when she was still processing that she was in a castle with Disney characters.

"The earth," she said afterwards, because Oswald was looking at her expectantly and she didn't want to let Terminus have any real influence on the lecture. The faster they got real answers, the faster she could get out of all of this and pretend it really was a bad dream.

"Wrong!" cried Ludwig, and then he laughed to himself again. "Both wrong! Here. I'll tell you. This-" he gestured to the outermost ring of the circle, and then pointed at Jessi. "Is your world. The 'real world', some people call it, which is ridica- ridic- which is just silly! But it's what it's called and so we gonna call it that."

He wrote 'real world' on the outer ring of the circle, and then skipped over the next ring entirely and instead pointed at the center circle.

"And this one right here is our world. The other world, that's what it's called, because it's not the real one. It's the other one." He labeled that one, too, and then pointed at the ring in the center. "And this one here isn't supposed to exist. Pretend it doesn't exist. You can't see it right now."

"Why?" asked Jessi, who felt like the explanation would be a lot shorter if they weren't ignoring part of the diagram.

"Why?" Ludwig echoed, and seemed confused for a second himself before shrugging dismissively. "Because I says so, that's why! Now see, these worlds are like the layers of a cake. And your world is on the top, and ours is on the bottom. And sometimes they mix because they've got a hole."

"A hole?" echoed Jessi incredulously.

"A keyhole," said the professor, but Oswald cut him off.

"How do you think our stories got there?" Oswald asked Jessi rhetorically. "Walt brought stories back from here every time he went back over there."

But Jessi wasn't listening, though she did vaguely feel her brain for up at the implication that these guys had personally met Walt Disney before. The detail pertaining to her arrival was much more important at the moment. She'd already stood up from her chair and had a hand clasped around the key hanging from her necklace. "You said a keyhole," she said, and gestured to the key. "Is that how I got here? With the key? What about everybody else?" As far as she knew, she was the only one who had found a key at the school.

"That's where it gets complicated," Oswald said. "Normally that _is_ the only way to get here. With those keys- and don't ask me where they come from, because even I don't know. We think they're just a byproduct of the magic in this place. Maybe some part of the world wants our stories to make it back over there, or maybe our worlds are just supposed to be connected. It's what Walt used, anyway. But…"

"But!" Ludwig took the opportunity to hop back in, and used the stick of chalk to jab excitedly at the ring in-between the two worlds on the diagram. "But you see this place? You see right here? This isn't supposed to exist," he repeated. "It's a space between."

Jessi looked to Oswald for clarification, who sighed. "Look, we can't really tell you that much. There's only so much we can observe when we're stuck in here- we can't get out without a key now that we've sealed off the castle. But here's what happened on our side of things."

He got up from his chair, walking over to the blackboard, and erased the inner circle entirely so that the other world and the space between were combined into one larger circle inside of the real world. Then he drew a tiny, tiny circle again in the center of that.

"Our whole world? It got pulled into the space between. This castle," he pointed at the tiny circle, "is the only thing that's left. We-" he gestured between himself, Ludwig, and Terminus, "are the only people who are left from our world. The others are… out there somewhere, I guess." He looked at the circle for a long second, then, his eyes seeming distant before he continued. "And that's what's happening to your world. It's getting pulled in, too. Just a lot slower, for some reason."

With one finger, he started erasing some of the line that separated the space between and real world. It was just tiny gaps- gaps that represented a field in a small town, for example.

"And that's gonna be the _last_ thing to happen to your world," added Ludwig, who still sounded far too invested in the lecture. It made him seem almost excitedly uncaring about the whole thing. Maybe he was just detached. Scientists tended to be good at that.

Oswald wince, and Jessi looked between the two of them, heart racing with a sudden urgency. It was the same sort of panic she'd felt in the hospital room. "What do you mean?" she demanded.

"We don't… really know what's going on out there," supplied Oswald carefully. "Or how everything's reacting now that it's… you know, together. But the professor has some equipment in here with him, and the readings… they're not good, Jessi."

"Tell me what you mean," she demanded again, punctuating every word. "I don't want a fancy explanation. What's going to happen to my world What's going to happen to the people in there?" She pointed at the diagram on the board.

Oswald looked pained as he glanced between the two doctors in the room, neither of which seemed inclined to answer. Terminus was studying the far wall with great interest, and even Ludwig was much more interested in studying his stick of chalk suddenly.

"Our worlds… they're really different," Oswald said, and Jessi bit her tongue to keep from shouting at him for pointing out the obvious instead of just getting to the point. "We don't think they were ever met to meet like this. Not directly, and not so suddenly. We think… I mean, if we can't figure out why this is suddenly happening and how to reverse it..."

He trailed off for a second, looking at the ground before looking to one of the windows of the dining room. The rest came out in a rush, almost faster than Jessi could process.

"We think both worlds are going to be destroyed."

* * *

AN: I lied, that was faster than a week. Also, I apologize because I sincerely hate leaving chapters on cliffhangers, but this monster was going to end up being like 10,000 words long if I ended it where I wanted to so we're just going to have to split it into two parts. Which means, unfortunately, we have a bit more exposition in the next chapter. Not a ton of it, though. We're close to the start of the action, I promise.

So, secondly, I want to thank all of you who have submitted characters thus far! There's been some really interesting concepts and I'm very excited to include some of them. A few of you did request some version of a form you'd like to use, and while I really don't have a set one in mind, here's some general things I'm looking for and some questions to provide inspiration if you want to send a character in. You can put as little or as much as you want, remember. I'm going to paste it here so anyone can use it if they'd like. Thank you for the favorites, follows, and reviews, as well! Hopefully the next chapter will be out within a couple days just so I can wrap up the exposition dump quickly for you guys.

-Name: Any nicknames?

-Age: Do they act mature for their age, or irresponsible?

-Appearance: Aside from standard appearance stuff, I'm also looking for very unique traits. Something you'd notice upon first seeing them. Do they have a large nose? An unusual eye color? A scar? A strange hairdo? Are they of an unusual height or wait? How do they move, do they walk funny? Do they have an accept or a lisp? Is their face expressive? Do they use a lot of body language? What sets them apart from everyone else in the world, in your opinion, in terms of how they look? How do they dress?

-History: Where in the real world is your character from? What's their family like? How popular are they, what interest do they have, and what had the most lasting impact on them as they were growing up? What are they currently focused on in their life? Do they have career goals? What's the one thing they'd do anything to obtain or protect?

-Personality: How do they respond to people? What are they likely to do in dangerous or unknown situations? How do they fit into a team setting? What sort of person do they get along with, and what personality traits can't they stand? Everything in this section will just help me write them more accurately to what you picture, so more information is better.

-Role in the story: Where were they living in the world and what were they doing when they were pulled into the next world? How did they handle it? Where did they end up, and who are they with (if anyone)? How do they react upon learning where they are? How do they feel about getting home, and what are they willing to do to get there? Did anything (or anyone) get pulled in with them? Are they looking for something? What's their goal in the context of being pulled from one world to the next, basically, and which Disney characters or settings would you like them to be associated with, and to what degree/in what capacity? If they're likely to form a group or team, what role would they play in that? You can give me multiple suggestions for different roles they could take and who you want them to interact with, as well. How soon would you like them to appear, and in how big of a role, and for how long? Again, these are just suggestions- in the end I'll use what I have and put them where they fit in best.

-Voice: How do they talk? What sort of dialect or unique phrases do they have? If you want to include a short sample of some dialogue they'd be likely to say, feel free to do so. What are their unique quirks?


	3. The Onset

Chapter Three - The Onset

"Hazel had read enough books to know that a line like this one is the line down which your life breaks in two. And you have to think very carefully about whether you want to cross it, because once you do it's very hard to get back to the world you left behind. And sometimes you break a barrier that no one knew existed, and then everything you knew before crossing the line is gone.

But sometimes you have a friend to rescue. And so you take a deep breath and then step over the line and into the darkness ahead."

- _Breadcrumbs_

* * *

No one got any sleep that evening. Not that Jessi knew of, anyways. She's been ushered into a guest bedroom and told that she could leave in the morning, but only if she wanted, because no one could really force her to do any of this and everyone knew it. She'd already agreed to it but Oswald seemed to be far from confident in her ability to keep promises.

She lay awake for hours on end listening to footsteps in the hallway and occasional banging from the lab, which was all the way down the long hallway but since the castle was so devoid of life it was hard to miss the noises.

The rest of the lecture (because that was what it was, might as well call it that) had been a blur, though that didn't really matter much because no one knew what to say after news like that. Everything they did know was vague enough as it was.

It was some sort of magic, Oswald said, and the very thought of _magic_ being a thing she'd have to worry about here made Jessi even more forlorn because she didn't know how to deal with that. She'd never been taught about magic and she'd never run into it before so how was she supposed to fight it? How was she even supposed to justify its existence?

But some sort of magic had attempted to take down the barriers without regard for consequence and had instead created an area in-between both worlds, a place that was neither here nor there. And the whole of… Disney, she guessed, because she didn't know what else to call it- it was all stuck in there now.

It hadn't entirely managed to break apart the second barrier, though. That was the problem. It had cracked it enough that pieces were falling through, like glass slowly chipping away or ice melting one drop at a time. And it was hard to say who exactly had been pulled through from the real world. As far as Jessi knew, the school had been the first building to go (because otherwise it would've been all over national news), but the people… who could say how many people were stuck there?

And they didn't even know what it was _like_ in there. A mix of both worlds was bound to be highly unstable. Oswald couldn't even guess if everyone there had been turned human to try and find a balance or if they'd all been turned into cartoons instead ( _cartoons_ , what if Herman was a cartoon, of all things?) or if anyone remembered anything (let alone who they were) and they couldn't find out because they couldn't leave.

That was the catch. The price they had to pay for closing off the castle and keeping the three of them safe from whatever would happen to them out there. They couldn't leave, not without a key, and no one could get _in_ without a key, either. The barrier they'd put up (an ability the castle had always possessed, apparently, because of… something to do with light, Jessi hadn't cared enough to really listen about _how_ it worked so long as it _did_ work) came with a keyhole, as most barriers apparently did. Which meant that Jessi could come in and out just fine.

 _Only_ Jessi could come in and out.

She had been so frightened, so beyond furious by being dumped with the news that the _world_ might be ending that she'd angrily tried shoving the key at Oswald multiple times, but each time he grabbed it it just appeared back on Jessi somewhere. In her pocket. Around her necklace. In her hand.

"It's bound to you," he'd said, and he'd been angry, too. Jessi wondered now if he would have been the one to go if he'd had the chance- if he would have been more willing to leave than she was, just to find his brother. And to fix both worlds. "You found it. We can't take it."

But maybe someone could unbind it, he'd suggested afterwards. None of them knew magic of any sort, but if anyone out there in the space between remembered any sort of magic- if Jessi could bring them back to the castle to work with the professor on fixing the barriers, if they could send _anyone_ else out with the key to gather people to the castle then she'd be free.

Relatively speaking. She didn't have a long-term plan, because she could bring Herman and Clancy back to the real world, sure, but they wouldn't say there. Not if things didn't get fixed. And there was the problem that they didn't even know how well magic worked out there yet.

Still, it was a temporary responsibility. That was how she justified it to herself. Her plan was simple- find Herman and Clancy, find _somebody_ who knew any sort of magic, get this awful key unbound from her and then send somebody else out to find people who can fix the problem and get them home without the worlds ending.

The hard part was getting them home. The holes leading to the real world were fickle, at best, the way they kept opening and closing and popping up in various places just for a split-second. There was no way to judge if they'd be able to find a way to get them home without completely restoring the typical barrier and being able to access the keyhole properly. Jessi thought that was a bridge she'd cross once she got to it. Or, rather, when the person who would fix the barriers got to it. Whoever that would be. She didn't even know how many magic users she had to work with or what she should be looking for out there in terms of appearance.

Oswald's relief had been palpable when she'd agreed to go out into the space between, but Jessi had been clear in making him very aware that she wasn't doing it for him. She wasn't doing it for anyone but herself, because Jessi was fully capable of admitting she was selfish sometimes. Selfish enough to want to save her best friend and her brother and let someone else handle the responsibility. Quite frankly, she didn't care who the others were missing or who they wanted back at the castle. As soon as she could bow out of this whole nonsensical mess, she fully planned on it.

She ran the information over in her head on repeat. It played over a backdrop of the events that had happened all of yesterday every time she closed her eyes. In the end it was easier to watch the ceiling.

The castle didn't get any darker at night. Maybe that was half of the reason she couldn't sleep. Aside from the weight of the responsibility that threatened to crush her, anyways. She hadn't bothered asking why, but she figured it was because they weren't really looking out at any sort of sky. They were just seeing the physical barrier separating them from the space between.

Or something. If nothing else, Jessi was getting good at making random guesses that involved nonsensical terms.

She was still trying to process all of it. Her brain just wouldn't shut down. So much had happened in- well, not necessarily a _short_ amount of time, as it had apparently been about four days, but she had been unconscious for most of it thanks to literally dropping through the barrier and falling many feet down into the gardens. According to the others. Still, even four days was a very short amount of time to attempt to process the fact that your world had been running parallel to another dimension for years and years and nobody knew about it about save for some dead movie-maker and whoever he'd passed the company on to.

She'd given up on checking her phone for the time because it just made her more antsy and the fact that she was wasting battery made her twitchy on top of that. It didn't even work, anyways. No cell service providers had been pulled through yet, she guessed, and the thought made her smile wryly which was probably an indication that she was incredibly tired. She wondered how many unseen texts she was getting from her mother, or if she'd already been pulled through, too. How was Jessi supposed to know?

After hours and hours of at least attempting to close her eyes long enough to fall asleep, Jessi rolled over to check the time on her phone one more time. It was a little before five in the morning, which seemed to be as good a time as any to give up the fight and just leave. She felt slightly better physically, in any case, which was as good as it was going to get. Her bruises hadn't subsided yet, of course, but the ache wasn't quite as persistent. The headache hadn't left either but she chalked that up to the fact that she had been awake for just about twenty-four hours at that point.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a long while, elbows resting on her knees as she looked towards the window. At some point she'd been supplied dark curtains to cover up the light from the clouds outside- or, rather, Terminus had come by and attempted to sell them to her (despite the fact that she literally had no money on her) and Oswald had shown up to argue with him until he agreed to hang them up for free. Jessi could've done it herself, but punching the man in the face and just hanging them up on her own was far more trouble than she had the energy for. She'd been genuinely tired when she first went to bed, but now it had just faded into a buzzing in the back of her head and a lightheadedness that made it difficult to focus.

The hallway was empty when she pushed the heavy door to her room open and stepped out, and the light hurt her eyes again though it was scarcely any brighter than it had been in the guest bedroom. She turned her phone on long enough to take a look in the camera and confirmed that her eyes were as red as they felt, and they had pronounced bags underneath them, which was a sign that this whole thing was going to start off just great. She'd probably scare off whoever she met first out there. Her braid looked more like a tangled mane than an actual hair style.

She made the prudent decision to avoid the lab as she started on her way around the castle. She'd undoubtedly get caught up in something that would take too much of her time and, really, she wanted to get this underway immediately. She had no idea where any of the hallways lead, or where Oswald was even staying (regardless of everything, he seemed to be the most composed member of the group), so she took to wandering without direction instead.

It would almost have been peaceful under different circumstances. As it was, the sheer exhaustion and soreness and the anxiety churning in her gut made it difficult to focus on anything but her feet moving from tile to tile. On more than one occasion one of those walking brooms passed by her, but Jessi only stopped long enough to stare as they walked by. She didn't think to stop and ask them for directions. They were only brooms, after all.

The quiet and the light filtering in from the windows lining the hallways gave it an otherworldly feeling, which was more accurate than Jessi cared to think about at the moment. That was the problem. It was all too light, in such stark contrast with the storm that had been brewing back her own world. It made it feel like nothing was really wrong here.

But it was. She didn't like thinking about the situation the others were stuck in just because it was so much easier to focus on her own goals, but they were three survivors out of… who knew how many. Jessi couldn't even count how many Disney movies there were, let alone all the characters in said movies. Not even characters, just people. To not know if the rest of your entire world survived being pulled into this new space, or if they'd been changed in ways you wouldn't recognize… she didn't envy them. The fact that Jessi had retained who she was, and kept her memory, that meant that the others from her world had to be the same, surely. It couldn't just be a side effect of having the key. She wanted to believe that, at least. But she couldn't speak for anyone the others had lost. Oswald had lost his brother, too- she at least had to remember that.

That's what it came down to, really. They were just as clueless as she was and she was literally the only chance they had to figure any of this out- the only chance to find or save anyone. They were probably just as frustrated as she was, only they were stuck feeling entirely helpless on top of it. It was easy for Jessi to forget, in the chaos of the last several hours, that this had happened just as quickly to them on a much larger scale. This was new to them, too. No one knew what was going on or what they were doing but they had no choice to work together. They were people, too, in some kind of sense. They felt the same emotions she did, or at least she assumed as much.

The whirlwind of chaos that had followed upon her awakening in the castle had covered up any sort of awkwardness they would otherwise have faced due to being complete strangers being forced to work together, but Jessi's face soured at the thought of having to return to the castle again after this. She just hoped they didn't expect to get buddy-buddy with her. None of them really seemed the type, fortunately, but the strangeness of the current situation was only tolerable thus far because she didn't have to really get to know any of them. She'd been so angry about the disappearance of Clancy and Herman. If these three turned their own losses into a sob story things were going to become unbearable very quickly.

Jessi was so caught up in her thoughts as she wandered that she didn't even notice she'd come back to the dining hall from yesterday until she was standing directly in front of the doors, which were slightly open, just enough that she could peer through. Oswald was sitting on one of the chairs near the end they'd been sitting at last night, staring at the chalkboard that was still set up across from him. His fingers (Jessi had to stare for a moment as she noticed he only had four on each hand) were laced together, and he appeared either pensive or anxious. It was difficult to read his eyes, and she wondered what he was thinking about. Maybe he doubted her as much as she doubted the rest of them. He had no reason to vouch for a random teenager, technical-adult or otherwise, being able to figure out any of this or bring anyone back. The thought made her slightly bitter, though she knew on some level she was projecting more than anything. Maybe he was just thinking about how tired he was.

She stood there, half-in and half-out of the doorway for a second or two, debating if she wanted to say anything before deciding that one way or another he was going to have to snap out of it to tell her how to leave. She didn't have any idea how the key thing worked, anyways.

"I'm ready to leave," Jessi said without any prelude.

And it was true. She was beyond ready to be out of the castle and somewhere else, whatever 'somewhere else' was. She'd thought previously that the bright walls had been suffocating but she hadn't realized how true it was until now. She felt sick to her stomach, half from exhaustion and half from the air being too still. She needed fresh air. The gardens were of no help because they weren't outside, not really, they were merely suspended in a barrier like everything else in this place.

Oswald was, surprisingly, not very startled by her voice. At the very least, it didn't look like he was. He turned to glance at her out of the corner of his eyes before doing a double-take, and then looked at the walls around him as if looking for something before turning back to her, this time with his eyebrows (or lack thereof) furrowed.

"What time is it?" He asked, and he sounded more awake than Jessi was but maybe that wasn't saying much.

He very well could've been awake all night, too. From the way he talked to the others it seemed like he was the leader of some sort around here, though that didn't say much given there was only three of them. And it made sense anyways, if he was really Mickey's brother. In the back of her mind, she wondered how she'd gone so long without knowing Mickey Mouse had a brother, and thought that if she got home from all of this she'd have much more Disney trivia to help her get through party games, if nothing else.

Jessi checked her phone. "Five thirty," she responded, which was more or less accurate.

"Does that work?" Asked Oswald, who seemed more interested in the phone than in anything else she'd said.

Jessi shook her head. "It's still got battery, but no signal."

"You could leave it here," he suggested. "You're leaving anyways, and I bet the professor could find a way to get it to connect to at least the castle. We'll give it back once he's got it working. We could keep in touch while you're out there?"

Jessi stared at him for a split-second, weighing how good of an idea that was. Oswald seemingly picked up on the reason behind her suspicion.

"He won't break it or anything. Promise!"

She wasn't sure how truthful that actually was, because from what she remembered of the duck (and what she had picked up from yesterday and the previous night) he was… eccentric, at best. Eccentric but a genius, she guessed, which meant that in the worst-case scenario he just snapped the phone in half and built her a new one that actually worked. She didn't have anything to lose, anyways, so she sighed and slid the phone across the table to Oswald after crossing the threshold of the doors.

"I need you to show me how this key thing is supposed to work," she said afterwards, cutting right back to the chase.

It was clear that Oswald was uncertain because there was a hesitance behind the forced optimism in his voice. "Right, you, uh, you said you're ready to go. You sure? I mean, did you sleep?"

"No, I didn't sleep," Jessi responded shortly. "But I'm sure."

"Guess we don't have time to waste," Oswald agreed with some sort of a sigh, twirling the phone in-between his fingers. Jessi nodded just because her stomach was so tight with nerves that opening her mouth again felt like a bad idea. She wondered if Oswald was glad she was just trying to get it over with or if it frustrated him. Either way, he stood up from the table and gestured with a hand for her to follow him down the hallway.

"I should probably warn you," he started as they were walking. His tone was conversational, or it tried to seem that way, but there was a tired sort of tenseness behind it and Jessi remembered that he was just as anxious as she was about how well this would actually work out for any of them. "We're not really sure where you'll end up."

Jessi gave him a look out of the corner of her eye, and he quickly corrected himself.

"I mean, you'll end up in-between! In that place. Of course you will! But the keyhole is kind of like… it's like a cannon. Just sorta shoots you out there." He shrugged.

Which explained the reason she felt like she'd fallen twenty stories down when she woke up, Jessi guessed.

"How do I get back here, then?" She demanded. "You don't even know where I'll be."

"That's the good thing about the whole world getting pulled in at once, isn't it? Everything's in the same place as before. Or it should be, anyway! The castle is always North."

"Compass might be handy, then," Jessi said, though she figured if the stars were the same then she'd always have Polaris to rely on.

"We already thought of that!" With flourish, Oswald produced a bag from… seemingly nowhere? The pocket of his shorts or something? Jessi didn't want to think about it. In any case, it was a plain-looking saddlebag, one that she could sling over her shoulder.

Jessi carefully took it and peered inside. There was a map in there, no doubt of whatever their world had looked like before. A compass, a few pens and pencils, and an empty journal. There was some food- easy to preserve stuff like bread and dried fruits- and a canteen of water. Standard survival things, and for a second she felt her heart race at the fact that it kind of _was_ a survival situation. Like a camping trip, unless she landed right in the middle of a whole town of people who could be brought back to the castle. And even then, who knew how long it would take for them to get there?

She just nodded as she closed the bag, not bothering with a 'thank you'.

"And, uh…" Oswald trailed off, tugging lightly at an ear again, and Jessi sighed inwardly. Hesitance was never a sign that she was going to hear something she liked.

Oswald stopped in mid-stride, fishing around in another pocket and presenting Jessi with a folded up piece of paper. On it was a short list of names, a few of which she recognized, others she didn't. Mickey, Donald, Huey… it went on with several more names. She could guess right away what it was.

"I know you're gonna go find your brother first," Oswald said, eyes glancing to the side to avoid meeting Jessi's. "But, uh. Just- the rest of us are looking for people too, y'know."

Jessi was silent as she looked over the list, and after a second of two of watching Oswald twiddle his thumbs out of the corner of her eye she finally looked up and nodded, though the movement was nearly imperceptible. Oswald looked just about ready to melt with relief, but he straightened up and nodded in return.

"Thanks. I mean it. I know this all happened real fast, and I wish we could-"

"Don't worry," said Jessi, and her tone was tight even though she really felt tired enough to truthfully say that she didn't even care at this point. It didn't matter. "I get it."

Oswald looked like he wanted to say more, but didn't. "We've labeled the map for you, too," he said as he started walking again, towards the gates of the castle. "I mean, you won't know where you land right away. But you can ask around and figure it out and then it'll make getting back here easier."

"Right."

She was only half-listening. Her mind was already sorting it all into tasks, breaking the whole thing down. Step one was find out where she was. Step two was find whoever she could, anyone with magic, anyone from her world, anyone who matched the list- provided she could recognize them. She had the vague worry that things wouldn't be so simple, that maybe getting pulled through like that had shifted them in some way she wouldn't recognize. What if they looked different? What if they didn't even know their own names?

When she pulled herself out of her thoughts again, Oswald was still talking. She wasn't sure how much she'd missed.

"-And we've got a pretty big library here. _Huge_ archives. We're gonna look for anything about those keys- Walt probably left some notes. That or somebody else did. Course, it'd be easier if we knew how they were organized..." he paused for a second, looking pensive as he trailed off, and then looked at her over his shoulder. "Do me a favor, would'ya? Add Jiminy onto that list I gave you."

Jessi stared at him for a beat. "Cricket?" She asked, both seeking clarification and airing her absolute disbelief once her brain had processed the request and actually thought about the name.

"There another one you know of?"

"Guess not," she said, and took out the list to scribble the name onto the bottom. Inwardly she thought that finding a cricket would be the very least of her worries once she was out there, not to mention absurdly difficult, but she didn't say as much.

"Thanks," said Oswald again. "I don't really think anybody else took the time to sort through all the books and records down there. He'd be a big help."

Jessi made a noncommittal noise of agreement because all she really remembered about that character was a whole lot of educational shorts, same as Von Drake. So she guessed he fit the bill.

"Milo, too, he'd probably enjoy going through all that stuff," Oswald added, and then he started listing off more names that Jessi cared to write down and she just resolved that she'd send _anyone_ back to the castle rather than spend ages hunting down specific ones on the list. She didn't even know who Milo was, as any character who wasn't a princess or a mascot was basically too obscure for her to recognize easily. She realized that she was absolutely the least qualified person for this job.

That was that, as far as she was concerned, but Oswald kept rambling about things he felt she had to know. It was like he was just getting more and more worked up with nerves, but nothing he said was of any real consequence to Jessi so she tuned him out. His talking faded into the background rushing in her ears. She wondered how ironic it would be if her first step out into the space between was just going to end with her passing out and falling flat on her face from exhaustion. It would be a fitting start to things, all things considered.

Her mind wandered far as they kept walking, partially because there was still so much to remember and keep track of and partially because she was too tired to focus on much, and she didn't even realize that Oswald had stopped until she was two or three steps past him. Looking back over her shoulder, her eyes trailed upwards from his form and focused on the large, imposing doors they were now facing.

Both of them were silent for all of two seconds, but it seemed to stretch on for ages.

"Well," said Oswald slowly. "This is it, I guess."

"What do I do?" Asked Jessi, and he shrugged.

"Just open 'em. We can't get them to budge but whoever has the key can probably leave just fine."

"That's it?"

"Should be it, yeah."

That felt very underwhelming to Jessi, who wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but she simply nodded regardless. Both of them stood silently for another second or so before she started moving.

"See you around?" Said Oswald once her back was facing him. "We'll keep working here while you're out there."

"Sure," said Jessi grudgingly, who didn't want to think about how she'd have to possibly make repeat runs to the castle or else end up with fifty people trailing along behind her because she'd been stupid enough to think she could tolerate that many people at once on their way back. Extended treks back and forth across a whole world somehow seemed better than driving a literal bus full of people all in one trip.

It was weider still how casual the departure sounded, and she realized that she'd essentially just become a part of a team. A team involving her and Ludwig and Oswald, in any case, because she still had no idea where Terminus fit into any of this. It was a strange way to look at the situation, and it was difficult to think of it that way. To think that she wasn't just working for her and Clancy and Herman.

The doors were intimidating once she was right up close to them. She wasn't sure why everything in the castle was so huge, but even the doors were sized for people many times taller than her. She hadn't thought to ask about the architecture of the place. Maybe it was just something else she'd have to accept. It was _Disney_ , regardless of how hard it was to think about that. Some things just didn't make any sense in a place like that and she couldn't expect this world to be like hers anyways. But as big as they were, they opened easily when she pushed on it even just lightly.

She caught sight of Oswald out of the corner of her eye as she did so, and he was standing still, and the look on his face was one of disbelief and slight awe and… maybe a bit of jealousy. Jealousy or just longing to go out instead. It was the same thing, she guessed. She wanted to tell him that she'd give him the key in a heartbeat, that she'd leave him to go find everybody else instead of her but that would be a pointless thing to say when nothing could be done about it.

Her first thought was to be careful as she was leaving. And that's all it was, really, a thought, because as soon as she had one foot solidly planted in the space outside of the castle she realized there _was_ no space outside of the castle. It was just a bright void, just like she'd thought but not really known until then, and her foot plunged down and the rest of her followed and she heard the door slam shut above her as she fell backwards.

Jessi tried to keep her eyes open but the white was all she saw, despite the wind rushing past her face that signalled she was clearly moving. Her already-tense stomach leapt up into her throat as she fell and she ended up squinting her eyes shut tightly just to not think about it. Her own yelling was partially drowned out by the noise in her ears as she continued to drop down.

How had Ludwig described it? The layers of a cake? She couldn't be sure which direction she was really falling, if there even was a direction, but she guessed moving so quickly from one layer to the next when they had no real physical position _would_ feel just like falling, somehow. The theory made as much sense as the concept of various dimensions, to her.

She only knew something had changed when the color behind her eyes was different. They were watering when she pried them open, and she suddenly realized that the air wasn't stinging as much as it should have been now. It was as though she'd slowed down, which quite frankly was a blessing if only due to the fact that Jessi wasn't excited about the prospect of being splattered all over wherever she landed.

But the slower falling thing was only a fleeting thought as she also realized that she was closer to the ground. Incredibly close, in fact, and she barely had time to register the fact that the white was gone and she blearily recognized an ocean surrounding an island before the branches rushed up to meet her.

Acting quickly and purely on instinct, Jessi shielded her face with her arms and as she felt smaller branches slice up her hands she was very grateful she was wearing her jacket. The breath was knocked out of her as her ribcage slammed against a much larger branch, and before she could get a grip she slipped off backwards and landed with full-force on her back on the next branch down. Her bag landed beside her several seconds later and she had a passing feeling of thankfulness that it hadn't hit her in the head.

Still wheezing for air after the first impact, she rolled off sideways and fell straight down onto the ground, where she landed on her back once more in the dirt, entirely out of breath and entire body screaming with pain. Stars danced in front of her vision and she thought for several seconds that it would've been much more pleasant to have just been knocked out entirely again.

She lay there for a very long time, waiting for her breathing to return to normal though her ribs still stung every time she inhaled. Cursing under her breath, she took great effort to roll herself onto her front, propping herself up with her elbows until she felt that she could move into a sitting position. It was fortunate that she hadn't eaten anything in many hours because if the fall itself hadn't upset her stomach enough (more than it had already been that morning) then the impact certainly would have.

But she felt more awake than she had previously. There was that, if nothing else. Not that it negated the fact that she'd become more bruised in the last few days than she had throughout the entire rest of her life, but at least she could focus, provided she could get up on her feet and start walking.

That took time, too. Getting into a sitting position was one thing, but getting onto her feet was another. It didn't help that there was nothing around to really pull herself up with. She nearly fell backwards several times as she tried to slowly rise to her feet, but eventually she managed it.

It was difficult to tell how long it had been since she'd started falling. Oswald could at least have left her with a watch of some kind, seeing as he'd taken the phone away, but the thought didn't linger long enough for Jessi to really get bitter about it. She was in too much pain to think of much of anything, let alone something that petty.

As far as she could see there was no sign of life in any direction, which was about what she had expected when she'd learned she was effectively going to be shot out of a cannon. Jessi hobbled her way over to a tree, resting one hand against it as she leaned there for a while, eyes closed and breathing as heavily as she could manage with her ribs hurting as badly as they were.

And that was all she needed. Just a moment of stillness to catch her breath and gather her resolve. The sky was clear and the fresh air would have been invigorating under better circumstances. It was enough to spur her into continuing.

And so, with that, Jessi set out in the first direction she rested her eyes on, stepping over the bushes and using the trees to act as her guideposts. She picked up the bag as she walked across the clearing and out into the forest, or perhaps it was a jungle- she wasn't good at judging trees, of all things. Either way, the air around her was filled with a distinct sense of commencement, the kind that lifted the air right out of your lungs and spurred you onwards towards unmapped paths.

* * *

AN: I want to thank you for how much support this story has gotten already! It's been an absolutely surprising amount for such a short period of time and I can't thank you enough. The characters you've submitted, especially, are going to be a ton of fun to add in and I'm really looking forward to it.

Secondly, because it comes up a lot more frequently in this chapter, it's probably going to be easy to notice that some of the broader concepts of this narrative take some key phrases from KH, no pun intended. In my defense, the concept of keys and light are pretty broad- and KH _is_ Disney. But I promise, that's all we're borrowing from those games. Just those couple of broad terms because it was difficult to work out how to explain the concept of traveling between worlds without some sort of device such as a keyhole. It's not going to play a bigger part in the story than it already has, so don't worry if you've never played the games. You'll understand everything just fine. The worldbuilding going on here is going to take a different direction entirely and I hope it's explained in a clear enough manner. This is the last chapter in which we're dumping worldbuilding on you, in any case, so we're jumping right into things by the end of it.

Thanks again for everyone who's left a review and sent in characters thus far, and for everyone else who's read and favorited/followed this story.


	4. The Lost

Chapter Four - The Lost

""You're just a child!"

"Well, you're just a teenager.""

- _Avatar: The Last Airbender_

* * *

It turned out that the unmapped path happened to be very, very long. Jessi probably should have expected this, given she was really in no condition to be walking at all, but after hours of trudging along she was still somehow surprised to see the sun sinking low in the sky. Her feet felt numb from the constant walking, and to make matters worse she still had no idea where she was or if she was even making any progress in finding someone. With her luck, she may very well have ended up on an entirely deserted island.

At some point the forest trees had transitioned into more tropical trees, so Jessi did know that she wasn't walking in circles. That was some kind of consolation, though not entirely a relief. She still didn't seem to be getting anywhere and she was so bone-tired by the time the stars started to emerge that she didn't have the energy to feel anything but a numbing pain. And maybe a slight sense of doom.

So all-in-all the whole thing was going well.

There was a creek, at least, and though she hadn't seen the waterfall she had heard it as she was walking throughout the day. She'd been able to collect water from the fast-moving part of the river and had been tentatively sipping it throughout the day, given that she had no means to boil it.

Besides, it was Disney water. If she got sick from Disney water she was calling this whole thing quits and sleeping through the rest of the apocalypse.

Jessi was far from optimistic about her odds and the progress she was making, but she did figure she'd earned that much: sleep. She'd long since reached the point where her exhaustion only kept her up rather than allowed her to easily nod off, but she hadn't stopped walking earlier because she felt that if she stopped she would not be able to get back up again. Sleeping on the hard ground would certainly do nothing to help her sore muscles, but there was little choice. She couldn't keep walking in the dark.

Well, maybe she could, but she didn't doubt that there was some kind of wild animal lurking about in a forest-jungle-whatever like this. She was fully expecting this place to not make sense, of course, but wild animals seemed like a given, even here.

Wherever 'here' was.

In the last light of the setting sun, Jessi took a seat on a fallen tree trunk and pulled out the map. It covered so much land (and sea) that it was hard to make out details on any landmass, much less an island. Still, she ran her fingers over the unfamiliar map, studying as much of the names as she could make out in the dim light of the evening.

Not for the first time, Jessi felt hopelessly lost and the frustration welled up with more force than before. She didn't want to do this. She didn't even get a _say_ in it and she was bruised and exhausted and her family was missing and the world might be ending and she still didn't even know if she was going to graduate high school.

With the decision to stop for the night, Jessi had little choice but to sit and think about how pointless the whole situation was as the light bled out of the sky entirely. She managed to nibble on some bread, because the nausea had turned into the aches of hunger as she'd walked, but it wasn't entirely appetizing. She attempted to pick twigs and leaves out of her braid, which was less of a braid and more of a collection of knots and flyaways, but that was just as pointless as everything else.

The night seemed much more imposing when she was alone, and she almost longed for the brightness and noise of company though she knew it would make things worse. Having someone else to look after was- well, actually, it was exactly what she'd signed up for. Regardless of whether she felt prepared for having to deal with it or not.

And that was really the crux of the matter. Regardless of everything, she was here.

Using the bag as a pillow, Jessi stared up at the stars and thought dimly about how uncomfortable the packed dirt was on her back as she tried to clear her mind enough to sleep. After a while of unsuccessful attempts, she went to roll onto her side when something out in the forest caught her eye.

Her position was up on the hillside, and though it wasn't very steeply sloped it was enough to permit her to see into the forest below her campsite (if it could even be called that). The trees were tightly packed together, but out amongst them she could make out a dim orange glow shining up from under their leaves. It was small enough that it only stood out in the complete darkness of the night, confined to one small cluster of trees.

Hesitantly, Jessi slowly rose to her feet, uncertain if she was imagining it. She figured it had been long enough that she could be having exhaustion-based hallucinations. But the orange glow remained where it was, and as her eyes focused on the darkness she realized there was smoke.

Torn, Jessi realized that if she didn't pursue the light now she wouldn't be able to find it again in the morning. It clearly came from a fire, though it was hard to say if it was a natural fire or a campfire. It seemed small enough that Jessi wanted to believe it meant there was a person there.

Way out there. A long way off and completely in the dark.

Jessi didn't realize it until she was already walking in that direction, but at some point the feeling of personal obligation and sole responsibility in this situation had overpowered her logic and perhaps her sense of self-preservation, or perhaps just self-care.

She wasn't sure what her line of thinking was as she departed the makeshift campsite and the prospect of sleep. Somewhere, lost in the noise of her head, there may have been a voice of reason screaming at the rest of her to stop as her feet moved mechanically, automatically towards their destination. The rest of her mind was still swimming in the dull acceptance of inevitability. It might as well happen, she supposed. Whatever 'it' turned out to be.

It become more apparent the closer she got that it was, in fact, a campfire rather than a wildfire. The smoke was confined to just one small plume, and she could tell as she approached ground-level with the flame that it was close to the forest floor. Or… jungle floor? She still wasn't entirely clear what the geography of this place was aiming to be.

But she didn't see anyone, even as she was within clear sight range of the clearing. The campfire could have been abandoned, but that was a poor decision at best (despite everything all those National Park forest fire commercials stuck with her) and deliberately malicious at worst. Or the person in question could be sleeping in a tree.

Or- and this was a possibility that Jessi hadn't considered in advance- they had seen her approaching and were hiding in said tree to throw rocks at her head.

She considered that possibility about half a second after a very large rock landed in the dirt several inches away from where she was standing.

Jessi looked at the rock for another beat, and then glanced in the direction it had come from. The fire was small, but the light it provided illuminated the clearing of trees enough to see the crouched figure in the low branch of a tree. They were staring at her, too, and their hands seemed to be empty of rocks. The one they'd thrown was about the size of Jessi's head- probably their only ammo.

"Excuse me," said Jessi in what she realized belatedly was no way to talk to someone who'd just thrown a rock at your skull.

"I wasn't trying to hit you," the person in the tree said, petulant and guilty (though not quite remorseful).

Jessi thought that perhaps she was too exhausted to hold this sort of conversation in the middle of the night, and instead nodded vaguely, nudging the large stone with her shoe, entirely bewildered with everything going on (though not for the first time). "Uh… thanks?" She supposed she meant it even if she couldn't work up the full sincerity of the statement. The rock would have crushed her whole skull in, probably.

"But I _could_ hit you," they warned, and pointed threateningly at Jessi with what she realized was a stick rather than a knife, as her panicked brain had initially assumed. "Unless you tell me who you're working for."

"Working for?" asked Jessi. "Me. I'm working for me." Which was the truth. Otherwise she could list she worked for Oswald but that really wasn't how she'd viewed the arrangement at all, he'd just sort of begged her to do all of this.

"That's not a good enough answer!" The figure in the tree jumped down, landing in a crouch and bouncing on the balls of their feet immediately afterwards, stick very nearly jabbing Jessi in the chest. And then they said something about pirates, maybe, but Jessi wasn't really listening because she had realized what was so odd about the voice of the figure. She hadn't been able to place it before then. They were a kid.

Jessi blinked, and then squinted. "What?"

"I said-"

"No, I heard you. You're- you're what, seven?" Jessi sighed and rubbed at her forehead. "What are you doing out here?"

And where _is_ here, she wanted to add, but she wasn't going to stoop to asking directions for a kid. She had to find somewhere to drop her off, she couldn't just leave her out here camping in the woods forever, regardless of who she was or where she came from. Unless she was supposed to be out here, in which case Jessi hadn't particularly thought about how she was going to handle a situation like that.

Jessi was no expert in Disney. She'd seen a lot of the important movies growing up, because who hadn't, but she wouldn't consider her any sort of professional when it came to identifying characters. The kid in question had a spattering of freckles across her nose and curly brown hair tied up into a ponytail that was somehow holding up much better than Jessi's braid was, although it was full of leaves and twigs (no doubt thanks to the fact that she was apparently crouching in a tree and waiting for someone to hit with a rock). Her hoodie was green, which Jessi supposed explained why she hadn't even noticed her up amongst the branches at first. She looked kind of like Jessi would imagine any runaway forest child to look like, which didn't help narrow things down at all.

Obviously none of that had been the right thing to say, because the kid straightened up indignantly. "I'm not _seven_ ," she said. "I'm twelve and I'm not telling you anything else unless you prove you're not a pirate."

Oh, Jessi thought. Great, she's twelve. That improved the situation. Barely even a year older than Herman. What if Herman was a runaway forest child now, too? The thought just made her even more tired.

"Do I look like a pirate?" Jessi asked.

"Not all pirates look like pirates," the kid said.

"...Fair enough," Jessi conceded.

The kid hesitated then, slowly lowering the stick. "But… _Neverland_ pirates always look like pirates. So I guess you don't really seem like one."

Jessi stared, and then tilted her head upwards to look at the stars beyond the branches overhead. "Sorry, _Neverland_?" She repeated.

"Duh," said the kid, and she tossed her stick onto the ground just so she could cross her arms in a self-important manner. "I figured it out right away. Didn't you see all the rainbows?"

"I was a little too busy to think about stuff like that," Jessi said distractedly, still looking around the area as if some sort of creature would burst out of the trees just to confirm that this was a real topic she was discussing. She wouldn't believe it otherwise. And, she thought (somewhat defensively), she wasn't sure she should be trusting the word of a twelve year old. For all Jessi knew, she was just projecting out of hopefulness.

Jessi was pulled out of her thoughts when she realized that the kid had already placed her focus elsewhere, and furthermore, she had the stick again and was lightly nudging the bag at Jessi's side.

"Do you have food in there?" She asked.

Jessi glanced at it out of the corner of her eye. "Yeah," she said finally because why not. Sometimes doing stupid hero stuff meant you had to give your food away to a twelve year old who threw a rock at your head. "How about this. We can sit and eat and ask each other questions, alright? I don't really know anything about this place and I have things to do, so maybe you can help me."

"I don't actually have to answer you, you know," the kid squinted at Jessi after some contemplation. "You could still be working for a villain."

"Then you can ask questions and _I_ can answer them until you decide I'm _not_ working for a villain," Jessi said, too tired and frustrated to really put up any other sort of argument. "Is that better?"

Apparently it was, because a couple of minutes later the two of them found themselves sitting cross-legged around the fire while the kid finished off the bread Jessi'd been sent off with. They were playing a makeshift sort of game, shooting questions back and forth and only sometimes giving truthful answers but it was enough to figure something out.

"What's your name?" Jessi asked.

"What's yours?" Asked the kid, and then smiled smugly because it was technically a valid question.

Alright, thought Jessi. Clearly that's how it's gonna be. "Jessi," she responded. "Your turn."

"That isn't a question," said the kid.

"Fine. What's your name, then?"

"You already asked that one," the kid shook her head, and Jessi just looked blankly across the fire at her until she caved. "Okay, I guess I'll give you this one for free. But you can't cheat again." Jessi decided not to mention that she hadn't been cheating to begin with. "My name's Ray."

"How'd you get here, Ray?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"That isn't- does that really count as a question?"

Ray shrugged. It was clear from the look in her eyes that she was trying to make a competition out of just finding ways to dodge questions- that or she was just purposefully trying to get on Jessi's nerves and enjoying every minute of it. "Does it?"

Jessi sighed, and cycled through to a different question instead. "How do you know this place is Neverland?"

"Because I've seen the movie. _Duh_. How did you _not_ know?"

"Because I was busy. I already told you." And Peter Pan was never one of her favorites, though she knew enough about it because it was more or less a cultural staple. Disney tended to be like that sometimes.

"Busy doing what?"

"Stuff. Important stuff that isn't your business," Jessi brushed the question aside, and Ray frowned at her with a narrowed gaze. "Why did you think I'm a pirate?"

"'Cause you're old," Ray said as if it was obvious. "How old _are_ you?"

"I'm forty," said Jessi.

"No you're not!"

"I am. I use a really great brand of anti-aging cream."

"You can't answer with lies, that's against the rules."

"Would I really do that? Lie to a kid?"

"I dunno. A _pirate_ probably would."

"This again? Really?"

Ray shrugged again, but there was a defiant challenge in her eyes. Jessi pursed her lips critically from the opposite side of the fire. It had to be sometime past one in the morning at the very least, by that point, and she wasn't in the mood to sit there playing mind games with a twelve year old.

"Alright, fine. I already told you my name is Jessi. I'm eighteen and my high school and my best friend and my brother all fell through the ground or something and I got separated from them because of some stupid hero reason that I don't fully understand. I'm looking for someone," she reached into her bag, took out the folded list, and carefully handed it over the fire to Ray. "A lot of someones, actually." She felt another brief wave of melancholy at the thought of just how far away all of them might be- how much work she had cut out for her.

Ray squinted back at her, unfolding the list. "Your school disappeared?"

Jessi nodded.

"Was it canceled?"

Jessi nodded again.

"Lucky." Ray shoved the rest of the piece of bread in her mouth then, and mumbled through it sullenly, "pretty bold of you to assume that you're the hero."

"I didn't say I was a hero, I said I got stuck with some stupid hero _thing_ ," Jessi said irritably, watching Ray read through the paper with half-interest.

Like some kid with a habit of watching Disney movies was really going to try and deconstruct the narrative over this. Then again, Jessi wasn't an avid writer or reader or… well, analyst of any sort of media. She supposed she wouldn't know if this was following a movie's plot, let alone what role she played in it. But she knew that she didn't really feel like a Luke Skywalker.

While Ray read, Jessi ran through a list of possible scenarios here. She didn't know a ton about Peter Pan outside of the basics, so she figured she only had a few options regarding where to drop off Ray- because that had to happen first, of course. The kid had to get out of the way before she could go on.

There was the titular character and the Lost Boys, but Jessi didn't really know if they even let girls into their ranks because they were children and probably had a petty gender rivalry going on, entirely founded off of the concept of cooties.

She didn't actually know if that was true or not. She could have been projecting based off of her memory of how immature everyone in this movie was.

The other option was the aforementioned pirates, which was such a bad idea that Jessi dismissed it entirely. And then there was the mermaids, who she recalled vaguely had tried to drown Wendy. Then again, Tinkerbell had also tried to murder Wendy, so none of the options were looking particularly great.

Maybe Ray really was better off camping out in the woods, provided they could find a regular food source. Or-

"It's not very good," Ray said finally, once she had looked over the list several times. It shook Jessi out of her thoughts entirely.

Jessi furrowed her brow. "What?"

"Your list isn't very good. _Everybody_ wants to find Mickey and Donald and those guys."

"I- those weren't my ideas. That's who Oswald is looking for." And the others at the castle, but she didn't want to split hairs.

Ray scoffed. "Oswald shouldn't get to decide _everything_. Who do you wanna find?"

"My brother. My friend. This isn't some autograph hunting spree, kid."

"Don't call me kid, I have a name!" Ray huffed, and then stood up and walked over to Jessi's bag, rummaging through it. Jessi figured there wasn't necessarily anything important in there and didn't make a move to stop her.

When Ray sat down again, she had a pencil in hand. Oswald had given her writing supplies on the notion that writing a journal would help her keep track of things, an idea that Jessi dismissed entirely because she didn't have the time to stop and write.

"Please don't add anything stupid to the list," Jessi asked as she saw what Ray was working on.

"I'm not," Ray protested. "I'm adding people that I wanna find."

"I'm not sure where you got the impression that you're coming along for any of this," Jessi said. "I'm dropping you off somewhere safe and then leaving. I'm not a tour guide."

"Fine," said Ray. "Then I'm only adding one person." Jessi arched an eyebrow expectantly for her to continue, and she then elaborated. "Peter Pan. I can join the Lost Boys!"

"Do they… allow that?" Jessi asked.

Ray gave her one of those 'are you stupid' looks. "Didn't you ever watch the sequel?"

"There's a sequel?"

" _Ugh_ ," Ray folded up the list and tossed it back across the campfire to Jessi, who fumbled to catch it before it fell into the flames. "I can't believe anybody put you in charge of stuff here. You don't know anything!"

"It isn't like we had options," Jessi argued. As far as she (or, rather, as far as anyone) knew, there was only ever one key at a time. "Look, Ray, are you sure you want to stay with them? I mean, is it… safe?"

"Safe? Peter's a good guy. He's a hero," she paused and side-eyed Jessi. "A real hero. It'll be fun!"

Jessi wanted to argue that, no, he wasn't really what Jessi would consider a _hero_ , he was more of an immature brat who happened to be in charge of more than he should, but fighting with a twelve year old over their favorite character wasn't going to get her anywhere. Everyone had personal heroes, she guessed, even if she couldn't help but feel stressed at the possibility that they just might toss Ray off a cliff and expect her to fly when Jessi didn't even know if that sort of magic _worked_ in this place, given the circumstances. Besides, it was easier than taking Ray with her.

"If you're sure," Jessi said finally. "I'll help you find him and we can drop you off there until I figure out a way to get everyone home."

"Home?" said Ray. "You're sending everybody home?"

"Ideally," said Jessi, who still wasn't so sure how that was all going to work out. "Things aren't going to go so well if they stay like this," but she didn't elaborate further. No need to tell a kid about the whole 'worlds being destroyed' thing.

Ray wrinkled her nose up, looking as though she wanted to argue something, but then turned to look into the fire instead for several long seconds. "How long's that gonna take?"

Jessi shrugged. "Not too long, I hope." But she couldn't say for sure.

"Okay, well, feel free to take your time. I want to spend time here way more than I want to go back home."

Jessi looked at Ray out of the corner of her eye, wondering what her life had been like back in the other world. Every kid fought with their families, she guessed. Jessi still fought with her brother on frequent occasions, and she was much older. But Ray hadn't said she wanted to stay forever, so at least she'd thought that through.

"I want to be just like him," Ray elaborated further, poking at the ashes of the fire with her stick from earlier. "And not grow up."

"Everybody grows up," Jessi said, tucking the note and the pencil back into the bag finally. "It's not as bad as it seems."

"How'd you know?" Ray shot back. "You're a teenager."

"I'm eighteen," Jessi corrected because she'd definitely just barely told Ray as much. "Literally an adult."

"Barely," said Ray. "And you can't tell me that everybody grows up when we're _here_."

"This isn't a game," Jessi said. "Or a cartoon. You can't stay here forever and you can't be just like Peter because things have to go back to normal. You have to go back to whatever family you've got."

"I didn't _say_ I'd say forever. But... I wouldn't miss _all_ of my family that much."

"Alright then, think of it this way. You could get seriously hurt. I don't know how this world works yet and neither does anyone else, you-"

"I didn't ask you to lecture me," interrupted Ray, who had her arms drawn across her knees, folded in on herself tightly.

Jessi stared at her from across the remains of the fire, though it was hard to make out her expression in the darkness, and then sighed again. "Fine. Forget it. We'll find them tomorrow and drop you off and you can do whatever you want until I'm done with everything else."

"Great," said Ray, who's cheerful energy from earlier had been severely diminished.

"We'll leave in the morning. Or mid-afternoon. I haven't slept in like, three days, so I'm sleeping in tomorrow."

Ray squinted at her. "That's not gonna work with my sleep schedule."

"What's your sleep schedule?" Asked Jessi, on the last fringes of patience.

"Stay up all night and sleep during the day. Why do you think I was awake when you showed up?"

Jessi supposed that was what a kid without any authority figures would do in such a circumstance, and barely stifled a roll of her eyes. "Alright, then do whatever you want and I'll carry you to Peter."

"Really?"

"Sure. It'll be a great first impression."

Ray seemed to consider that for a moment, and then grinned slyly. "Okay, good point. You win. I guess I'll sleep. If anything, I'll have to carry _you_."

Jessi hadn't exactly been viewing any of their exchange as a competition of any sort, but still felt a slight victory at that. "Guess we'll find out," she said, and tossed the bag over for Ray to use as a pillow instead before curling up with her arms tucked under her head in the dirt.

Sleep, fortunately, came easily this time around. It wasn't late morning until Jessi awoke, still incredibly sore and vaguely tired but at least not dead on her feet with exhaustion.

It took a while longer for Jessi to open her eyes, though, and she only did so because she realized that someone was shaking her. That must have been what had woken her up in the first place. She squinted at the bright sunlight for a moment or two before sliding her gaze over to look at Ray, who had a grip on her arm and was jostling it up and down.

"What?" Jessi croaked, and Ray looked with wide eyes into the forest.

"Look!"

Jessi had to take a moment to consider whether or not she really wanted to, given it was probably something terrible, but after great deliberation she finally sat up with great care and turned her head to look into the bushes.

They were surrounded.

By who, she couldn't quite tell, but she had a fairly good guess. The figures were crouched in the cover of the bushes, but their arms were sticking out and so were all the sharp sticks and toy swords and slingshots they had pointed right at Jessi and Ray.

"...Oh."

* * *

AN: This chapter marks the appearance of the first submitted OC in this story- Ray belongs to Chirithy564. She was chosen to appear first because she makes a good foil to Jessi and a couple of other characters who will be joining Jessi later on. She's energetic and willing to jump right into any situation, while the others are going to be much more cautious or just entirely unwilling to do the same. I apologize if anyone's disappointed with the lack of other Disney characters in this chapter, but as you can probably imagine they're going to turn up in the next one. I just had to dedicate some time to introducing Ray so you have an idea of her personality and how she's going to interact with Jessi, at the very least. Thank you for reading!


	5. The Stopgap

Chapter Five - The Stopgap

"Just once, I'd like to ask someone for help and hear them say, 'Sure, let's go. Right now. No strings attached.'"

- _Mass Effect 2_

* * *

"I just want to make it clear again how ridiculous I think all of this is," Jessi said.

It was more of a hiss, actually, given the two of them were trying to keep their voices down so as not to be poked in the back with sticks as they marched through the forest, hands bound sloppily with rope and surrounded by makeshift escorts.

Just three escorts, actually, and Jessi had no idea where the other Lost Boys were presently located or how many there were to begin with. Seven maybe? She certainly wasn't going to be adding them to the list.

Ray didn't say anything, but Jessi felt the glare on the back of her neck regardless. She'd been grumpy following the (very brief) altercation in the bushes, and Jessi got the impression that it was because Ray had envisioned her first meeting with the Lost Boys going much differently. She was no doubt silently blaming Jessi for it although she hadn't done anything wrong.

There hadn't really been much of a 'meeting' at all, if Jessi was going to be honest about the situation. It was more of a one-way argument on Jessi's end and Ray had been gushing about how cool the whole thing was because she'd been looking for them since she ended up here. If the Lost Boys were flattered by this, they didn't show it because then they'd been taken captive to be brought to the leader and Jessi didn't really have the heart to knock down a bunch of kids, as she'd wanted to. So she played along as they bound her wrists and set them on a march towards whatever headquarters they had. It was all a blur, partially because she hadn't enjoyed being woken up that early.

Ray, of course, was less happy about the situation currently, but that argument was just as pointless. The kids were taking their job pretty seriously. They wouldn't even answer her endless questions and her protests that she was supposed to be one of them, she wasn't even associated with Jessi in the first place.

"They woulda just let me walk with them if I wasn't with you," Ray pouted, doing a poor job of keeping her voice low. "They probably thought you were a pirate, too."

Jessi took mental note of her very un-pirate-like bomber jacket and hat. "Why do you keep insisting I look like a pirate?" she asked.

"It's a mindset," said Ray with a shake of her head that almost seemed disappointed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world and she couldn't believe Jessi hadn't gotten it through her thick skull yet. "Not a _look_."

Jessi had no idea what that meant and didn't bother to ask.

"Hey! Stop talking," said the kid walking behind Jessi- the one dressed up like a bear. She vaguely recognized him from the movie. He was probably doing the worst job of the three of them as far as taking the job seriously went, though that wasn't for lack of trying. He at least pretended to be intently focused but he kept falling behind the rest of the group.

Then again, the kid walking behind Ray had to be like, what, five? Definitely way younger than Jessi would trust with a hostage. So how well they were doing the job didn't matter that much.

"She wasn't talking," Jessi said. "It was me."

"Yeah," protested Ray. "It was her," and Jessi instantly wondered why she'd even bothered jumping to Ray's defense if she was just going to throw her under the bus in return.

"No talking to the hostages!" Said the kid in the front of the pack- the fox one (Jessi didn't know their names, if they even had any to begin with). He'd seemingly let the small amount of power he had as leader of the trio get to his head, because he shouted like that every time one of the other two so much as said a word to Jessi and Ray. His head was set forward and he was marching with vigor.

"Sorry," muttered the bear kid, and he instead just jabbed Jessi lightly in the back with the stick for what had to be the fifth time or so since they'd started out. Half of the time she hadn't even been doing anything.

"If you do that one more time I'm going to take that from you and snap it in half," Jessi said.

He scoffed. "You can't do that!"

Jessi chose not to point out how flimsy the ropes around her wrists was or the fact that she could just kick the stick out of his hands. Maybe that was the most ridiculous part- everything was just kids games here. She couldn't mediate her way out of a situation or go down fighting because they were all ten years old at most.

She wasn't entirely sure how she planned on resolving the situation. Ray seemed keen on being taken to the leader, who was no doubt Peter Pan, so that was the only reason Ray wasn't fighting the bonds at all. And Jessi didn't know how she felt about just running off and leaving Ray alone yet. Besides, as much as she hated to entertain the possibility, there was a good chance Peter knew at least one fairy. A fairy with access to the stuff that made them fly, and consequently probably the only thing that could get Jessi off of the island short of a boat.

She supposed there was also the option of teaming up with Hook, but Ray's opinion of Jessi was already rather low (and tilted strongly in the direction of 'pirates' for some reason), so she didn't exactly want to fuel that fire. And there was no way he'd ever leave Neverland, let alone to take her anywhere.

So she tolerated the makeshift capture in silence for the rest of the walk. It wasn't an incredibly long distance, but that didn't mean she was any happier about having to take the detour in the first place. If it could even be considered a detour. It was an inconvenience, certainly, but she didn't exactly have anywhere else she was actively trying to get to.

When they were finally commanded to halt, they were in an overcast clearing surrounded by half-fallen trees and logs. It looked like some sort of meeting place, though it clearly wasn't the tree den they had in the movie. Jessi wondered if it had somehow been displaced from the island when people from the real world fell through, or if they just chose not to bring strangers there once they captured them. The fact that both seemed equally likely was absurd.

They'd gone over that in the castle. How the force of falling through tended to just scatter things everywhere. The concept still didn't entirely make sense to Jessi, but given that both she and Ray were here (and who knows how many others) there seemed to be a very good chance that quite a lot of the island was just missing entirely.

The fox marched forward a couple of steps and gave a proud salute, facing the trees, just as serious as ever. "We went and captured the intruders, ma'am! I did most of the work."

"No you didn't," protested the bear, scrambling over to his side to sloppily salute as well.

" _Ma'am_?" asked Ray at the same time, looking bewildered and vaguely frightened. Like the possibility of there being someone she didn't account for her was upsetting. Maybe it was- Ray seemed to hold her knowledge of this place like a bible.

But a scuffling sound in the trees caught Jessi's attention immediately- what was it with people in Neverland and hiding in the plant life? And then second later a girl slid down one of the trunks of the trees to survey the two prisoners.

She was short but compact, and her thin eyebrows and small nose gave her a certain sternness as she looked down on them from the half-fallen tree she was situated on. Her hair was in a ponytail just like Ray's was, but this girl was obviously older- a teenager, certainly, but Jessi wasn't great at spitballing ages. From her style of dress, Jessi got the impression that she was somewhat of a punk (her converse went up to her knees, but maybe that was just the hip thing with younger teens and Jessi was wildly behind on fashion). She examined them briefly before leaping down from her perch, landing in the dirt in front of them and surveying them from just a couple feet away.

Jessi and Ray stared unabashedly for several seconds. Jessi was just trying to pick her memory for if she'd ever seen the girl before. Was she from a movie?

Ray looked like a fish out of water, mouth gaping open and closed a couple of times as she tried to manage actual words.

"Who are you?" Jessi asked finally.

"Where's Peter Pan?" Ray cried at the same time, her words finally returning to her. She sounded entirely dismayed.

"She's our new leader," said the skunk kid with a shrug. He was sitting a ways away from the rest of them, idly picking at the grass.

"But not forever," said the fox, crossing his arms, clearly opinionated about the situation despite the fact that he'd been perfectly content to brag to the girl earlier about his achievements. "It's temporary!"

"What!" said Ray. "You shouldn't be the replacement leader, you're not even from the movie! What happened to Rufio? He should've taken over!"

 _Who's Rufio_ , Jessi thought, but didn't voice the question because there were more important things to ask about than whatever sequel Ray was possibly referencing.

"She's the oldest," offered the skunk as an explanation.

"And she won rock paper scissors," the fox admitted petulantly.

"But what about Peter?" Ray pressed.

"Hold on," Jessi also held her hands up, though it was in more of a 'slow down' gesture than anything. "One thing at a time. Who's this, again?"

"I should be asking you the same question," said the girl, stepping closer to Jessi and leveling a steady gaze up at her. Up until then she had been quietly watching between all of them with a cold gaze.

Jessi took a moment to consider the situation, given that she was now fully involved in it. She knew very few things about what was going on (something that was becoming increasingly common), but she could list them out in her head, at least.

Firstly, this clearly wasn't Peter Pan. It was hard for Jessi to judge what sort of impact this had on the Lost Boys, but it seemed they genuinely did just follow her because she was oldest. Despite how lean the individual looked, Jessi wouldn't wager that she was particularly good at combat. Then again, were any of the Lost Boys that good at it aside from Peter? She wasn't sure. Maybe that wasn't a qualification when it came to leadership.

She wasn't sure if the Lost Boys even knew what was going on or where the others had gone to. Actually, she wasn't sure if anyone outside of the castle knew it. And if this girl was from the real world, too, how did she end up in this situation?

All things considered, she at least seemed to take her job much more seriously than Peter Pan. Now that Jessi thought to notice it, at least the fox-clad member of the Lost Boys seemed off-put by this. Ray did, too, but that wasn't saying much given Ray's hopes had been sky-high for actually meeting Peter. Idly, Jessi wondered what this girl's policy was on accepting new Lost Boys. She didn't seem the friendly type, from first impressions. More of the calculating type.

"Nobody worth capturing," said Jessi carefully after she finally thought of how to approach such a person.

"So says the individual who was lighting fires so close to our hideout."

"I didn't even know where your hideout was. I'm just passing through by chance and stopped for the night to make a campfire." Which was basically true- Ray had made it, not her, but Ray didn't seem eager to throw herself in the crosshairs this time around. Or even talk to the girl at all. "Can you- okay, you're not from this movie, are you?"

"Jessi," said Ray crossly, still somewhat pouting, "look at her outfit. Does she _look_ like she's from the movie?"

Jessi rolled a look over towards Ray. "There could be a seventh sequel set in 2015 for all I know. I'm trying to cover all my bases here."

The girl looked back and forth between the two of them for a split second before waving a hand in the direction of the three Lost Boys. "We're resuming our treasure hunt from earlier," she announced. "First one to find it is second in command for the day."

"Finally!" the fox kid cried, shoving past the other two and sprinting out in the forest.

"Hey, that's not fair!" said the cub, trailing behind in second. The skunk kid took a while to even notice they'd left and ran along last afterwards.

And then they were back to the judgemental staring. The silence of the area around them following so much clammer before was strange, but fortunately it only lasted for a split second before Ray stepped forward. Her hands were still tied behind her back, but the way she leaned forward made Jessi picture her jabbing a finger accusingly in the direction of the temporary leader.

"Alright, I've got some questions for you!" Ray said. "First of all-"

"You get three," said the girl, crossing her arms.

"What?" asked Ray.

"Now you get two."

Ray opened her mouth to protest again, and then thought better of it, clamping her mouth shut and puffing out her cheeks. "Fine. Where's Peter Pan? What'd you do to him?"

"And now you have zero questions left. I don't know where he is and I didn't do anything to him. When I woke up here he was gone."

"Likely story! What, you really expect me to believe that the first thing you did was try to find the Lost Boys so you could take over?"

"Ray, the first thing _you_ did was try to find the Lost Boys," Jessi pointed out.

"Well… yeah, but I didn't try to take over!"

"They had no leader when I found them," the girl said with a shrug of her shoulders. "And I'm the oldest. It's temporary, just as they said. Don't try to point fingers at me when I haven't done anything wrong."

"Nobody's pointing fingers at anybody," Jessi intervened. "We're all on the same side here, okay? All from the real world."

"And?" The girl prompted.

Jessi drew a blank. What did she mean, 'and'? And what? They were all from the real world and that meant they had to have some sort of sense of togetherness. It was them and then a bunch of Disney characters, people who would just be stories by the time they all went home. It was clear to Jessi what company they ought to keep.

"And I'm working to get us back to the real world," Jessi continued at length. "There's a castle we can stay at to work things out."

"I'm not going to some castle," said Ray stubbornly. "I want to help find everyone."

"What do you mean, find everyone?" Jessi asked. "Just because characters are getting separated doesn't mean you get to go on a scavenger hunt for all of them."

"That's what you're doing, isn't it?" Ray said. "You have a list."

"I'm looking for my family. People from our world. Everyone else on that list is just a bonus requested by somebody else. I don't claim to have a personal investment in finding them."

"This is why you're a fake hero," Ray said, and Jessi shrugged, not having a real argument against that.

"Just because you're trying to leave doesn't mean that's what I want," the girl said. "I'm more than capable of leading them until you two find Peter."

"Again," said Jessi. "We're not finding Peter. I don't know where you both got that idea."

"Yes we are!" Ray interjected. "I don't want to be a Lost Boy unless Peter makes me one. That's the only way it'll be real. Jessi and me are gonna find him and bring him back here where he should be."

"Please stop speaking for me," Jessi said irritably. "We are _not_ doing that."

"Alright, then," said the girl, very clearly listening to Ray and not Jessi. Despite her outward coldness, there was the distinct impression that she was having great difficulty holding the whole situation together. She went around the back of them, undoing the loose ropes that were tied around their wrists and then stepping back in front of them, arms crossed again. "My name is Yekaterina," she said. "And I think I have a deal that can benefit the both of us."

"The _three_ of us," Ray corrected her pointedly.

"You two have the same goal," Yekaterina said. "The deal benefits both sides. Thus it benefits both of us."

"We do _not_ have the same goal," Jessi said again, and she tilted her head in Ray's direction. "She's on a glorified autograph hunt. I'm looking for very specific people. It's different."

"I'm listening," Ray said to Yekaterina, folding her arms and trying to look as stiffly professional as Yekaterina did. Jessi rolled her eyes skywards as if seeking patience from the clouds.

"We have enough fairy dust left to make one round trip off of this island by way of boat," Yekaterina launched straight into her proposal, not breaking eye contact with the equally-serious Ray.

"How do you know it's exactly enough for that?" Ray narrowed her eyes.

Yekaterina faltered for a fraction of a second- so quickly that Jessi wasn't even sure Ray noticed. But the uncertainty in her gaze was clear in that moment before she schooled it back into a stern, authoritative mask. "The Lost Boys told me. They know these things well."

"And let me guess," Jessi said. "You don't _have_ the boat to actually fly anywhere."

"Is that why you guys never went to look for Peter and the other Lost Boys?" Ray said. "You could've gone over there and beat Hook anytime if you got here way before we did!" She then paused, uncertain. "...Hook _is_ there, right? If he's missing too then this place is gonna be real boring."

"Hook's there," Yekaterina said, and she shifted her weight slightly in such a way that the folded arms looked far more uncomfortable than confident. "But I wasn't- I didn't want to defeat him when that should be Peter's honor."

Jessi looked at her for a long moment, narrowing her gaze just slightly as something clicked. "You don't know how to fight, do you?"

"You don't get to make assumptions about me."

 _So... yes, basically_ , thought Jessi. But she dropped the topic anyways.

Now things made more sense. No wonder the Lost Boys were so antsy- they hadn't got to fight Hook or really do much of anything that they normally did, seeing as they were stuck with a leader who effectively _couldn't_ do what Peter did. She hadn't had the time to learn, and attempting to teach yourself with the expectations of three kids piled on top of you for what's pretty much just a glorified babysitting job… Jessi didn't envy her.

Still, Yekaterina seemed determined to fill the role as best she could. Jessi had to respect her for that. For trying to find a place to fit in when the whole world was different and she was alone. Jessi wondered if she would have been able to do the same if she hadn't received the key. If she would have just settled and tried to live life as normally as she could here.

But earing their respect as a leader was difficult. The deal benefited her in that maybe they would listen now- maybe they would trust her. And the Lost Boys having a leader of any sort was better than them having no hope at all without Peter.

"We help you take the boat back from Hook," Jessi confirmed slowly, piecing together the request, "and you drop us off on a mainland."

"Take it or leave it," Yekaterina said, and she didn't break eye contact as she spat into her palm and held out her hand, which was a strange habit to see given her cool demeanor.

"Okay, no. No, we're not doing that," Jessi said, recoiling backwards in disgust. At the same time, Ray enthusiastically spat into her own palm and shook hands with Yekaterina.

"Deal!" Ray cried.

"Sorry, hold on," Jessi quickly pulled Ray to the side, holding up a hand in Yekaterina's general direction. "Quick team meeting," she looked pointedly at Ray.

"We're a team now?" Ray asked.

"Team 'looking for really specific Disney characters', yeah, sure," Jessi said. "Look-"

"That's an awful name for a team."

"The name doesn't matter. Look, there is no way I'm going to take down Hook. I've never fought before in my life."

"I take karate," Ray said proudly.

"That's great," said Jessi, unenthused. "But that's not going to be enough to save all of us from walking the plank or anything, so…"

"You're really negative for a hero. Even a _fake_ hero."

"Ray, this is serious," Jessi said. "This isn't like the movie. Taking a boat back from pirates is a really big thing and people could get hurt."

"But we're the good guys. The good guys _always_ win."

"Again, not a movie. It's like you aren't even listening."

"But we _have_ to get the boat 'cause we have to leave. You've gotta find people 'cause you're the hero and I'm going to find Peter and become a real Lost Boy." Ray paused, and then corrected herself. "Lost Girl."

"I'm not disagreeing that we need to get the boat. I just-"

"Besides, somebody has to tell you all about the movies 'cause you've never seen anything."

"That's also fair, but-"

"But nothing!" Ray threw her arms up into the air. "What, you have options now? I sure don't see any!"

Jessi hated how right she was about the situation, and she placed her hands on her hips as she studied Ray's determined gaze.

"Alright," she said finally. "But we're not attempting anything without a plan."

And that was how Jessi found herself crouched in a barrel on board Captain Hook's pirate ship.

The planning session was tipped heavily against Jessi's favor. Which, to be fair, probably should have been expected, given that there was no way Ray _wasn't_ going to join the Lost Boys in their part of the plan. The actual attack part, that is. And Yekaterina had designated herself as the distraction- the one who got to talk to Hook to draw him out. But none of that could happen until Jessi successfully scouted out the ship and determined exactly how many pirates they were working with.

The instructions were fairly simple. 'Don't get caught, but if you do get caught we'll come break you out in an hour or two'. So, in other words, 'try to come back and give us information but if you don't manage that then just let the kids beat up pirates and rescue you'.

Exactly what she should have expected from Neverland.

No one wanted to waste what pixie dust they had left on getting Jessi over to the ship, which was also reasonable enough considering they needed to get the boat off the ground (er, out of the water), but it did mean that Jessi was soaking wet from her swim out to the boat. Fortunately it wasn't too far away from land, at least, so it hadn't been exhausting. That said, she wouldn't consider the swim fun. And it was less fun being soaking wet in the bottom of a barrel.

She had the journal from the bag with her, and from a crack between the wooden panels she was tallying off a list of pirates that passed by. She figured she'd have to move eventually to get a more comprehensive list, but it was serving her well thus far. She identified them by outfit, mostly, just to make sure she had no repeats. Thus far there had only been three of them, but she was on the top deck and she knew the ship was probably quite huge down below.

It was all about the timing. Granted, she had no idea if they followed any sort of patrol schedule. It didn't seem like it from the impression she was getting. She wished she had a walkie talkie or something- Ray would probably know the answer to that question. And she'd probably know where the captain's quarters was located, too. Jessi already knew Hook was on-board, but she hadn't seen him at all. Him or his sidekick, whatever the name of the guy in the striped shirt was. Her memory of the movie was vague except for the big details.

It took her a few minutes to work up the courage to finally lift the lid of the barrel and peer to see if the coast was entirely clear before quietly climbing out, frowning as she looked at her feet and realized that she was definitely going to leave a wet trail of sea water anywhere she walked that happened to be dry. Then again, how dry could the floors of a pirate ship be, even below deck? It was probably fine.

She had fortunately chosen a barrel in the corner near the stairs, so she didn't have to traverse the whole top deck to get down to the lower ones. Still, she kept her movements quick and light (at least as light as she could manage, though Jessi wasn't particularly gifted at being light on her feet) as she descended the staircase and found another crate to hide behind for a while.

Jessi was about to emerge from behind the crate after another minute or so of waiting in silence, but she suddenly heard footsteps approaching from one of the lower decks. They would have been too faint to notice if there hadn't been three of them walking at once.

Craning her head up to peer just slightly over the top of the crate, Jessi watched as two new pirates rounded the corner and ascended the staircase to the top of the deck. She made new tallies in the journal, and then looked again to see if the third had gone by already and she'd somehow missed it or if they were still waiting around the corner. One way or another, she was met with nothing but the empty hallway and silence. Maybe she'd missed him.

Though the position was awkward to maintain, Jessi remained like that for three more minutes or so before deeming the coast clear enough to continue onwards. Rising carefully from her crouched position, she tucked the journal into the pocket of her jacket and scanned the hallway one more time.

And then there was a dagger pointed right at her face.

"Hm," Jessi said, which was absolutely not the appropriate reaction to finding a dagger in one's face. But least she also managed to have the reflexes to raise her hands up into a gesture of surrender as she said it, so all hope wasn't entirely lost for her reflexes, she guessed. Though this wasn't boding well for her ability to properly respond to surprises or moments of crisis. Maybe the falling from the sky on several occasions had knocked that sense out of her. Or maybe she was hanging around too many children that liked conflict.

And the pirate holding it was a new one, too. She'd have to add him to the journal if she lived through the encounter.

* * *

AN: Yekaterina is another submitted OC, this time from POMForever. As is probably clear from her introduction here, she won't be joining Jessi and Ray on their trip, but she's definitely going to show up again in the future. This isn't the group's last encounter with her or the rest of the Lost Boys. This chapter was rather short as it was intended to be a setup for the next chapter, which will introduce another one of the main characters on the team as well as an unnecessary amount of worldbuilding and Hook (spoiler alert: he's in this story).

Since I've had a couple people ask, I'd also like to confirm here that OC submissions are still open and will be until the point at which I get overwhelmed with the sheer amount of them. We haven't hit that point yet, so I'm more than happy to accept OCs to fit in as secondary characters in the various worlds of the story or even working at the castle. I'd also like to state right now that regardless the specific role your OC gets, as long as you provided a decent amount of information they won't just be one-off cameos. Most of the secondary characters will hold some importance to the plot and will be seen more than once over the course of the story, I assure you.

If anyone else has any questions, comments, or concerns, you're always welcome to PM me! And, as always, thanks for reading and for (hopefully) taking the time to review.


	6. The Lock

Chapter Six - The Lock

"Right now I'm having amnesia and déjà vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before."

- _Steven Wright_

* * *

Jessi, for better or worse, was not immediately killed upon being captured. Rather, she was thrown with far more force than was necessary into a cell in what she assumed was the brig (despite everything she did retain at least a modest knowledge of the layout of ships). Apparently she hadn't been very far away from it to begin with, because they didn't have to walk far at all. On one hand, Jessi was grateful to be spared the ridicule of being paraded around the ship before being jailed. On the other hand, she didn't get the chance to take note of any more pirates.

The rough treatment did no favors to her already bruised body, of course. The metal door to the cell slammed shut behind her and her captor stomped away without so much of a word- he'd mostly just snarled and grunted as they were walking. Maybe that was the only sort of noise he _could_ make.

She hit the wooden boards with a rush of air from her lungs and the back of her skull cracked hard against the ground. The adrenaline of the situation sent her rolling back up onto her feet immediately, hands shaking and body barely registering the pounding in her head and shortness of breath. Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement in the cell and without thinking she swung around, facing the back of the tiny room they were in. There wasn't much at all between her and the other prisoner- or guard, maybe, but she somehow doubted they tossed guards in cells to look after prisoners.

The other individual in the cell didn't _quite_ look like a pirate, although apparently pirates don't have as strict of a dress code as Jessi was lead to believe, according to Ray. His outfit was remarkably standard- a dress shirt that had probably been a pristine white, once upon a time, and plain-looking pants and shoes. In fact, there was nothing remarkable about his appearance at all, from what Jessi could see (though it was difficult given they were below sea level and the one lantern that lit the brig was on the far wall, away from their cell). His eyes were dark and maybe wider than normal, Jessi guessed, and upon closer examination of his face she noticed his nose was flat. Otherwise, she couldn't really say she'd be able to pick him out of a crowd.

What with the obvious lack of pirate attire, it took her awhile to rack her memory to attempt and recall whether or not this was someone she should recognize. She didn't think so, but then she hadn't recognized most of the background pirates milling around the ship thus far anyways. At the very least she figured he wasn't one of the key players in the movie.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"I'll tell ya," the man said slowly, "If you don't punch me. Erm, please." He was pressed against the other wall of the cell, hands raised placatingly, like he was trying to soothe her rather than show his lack of weapons.

"Punch you?" Jessi echoed, and then realized that in her rush of adrenaline she'd swung around with both fists raised as if she were, in fact, about to punch the guy. She looked at her own hands for a second before lowering them slowly. "...Sorry."

"Not a problem," he said, still speaking very slowly, obviously incredibly wary.

"Alright," said Jessi absent-mindedly, scratching at the back of her head and sighing deeply to attempt to clear her mind of the adrenaline rush as she slowly came off of it. Idly, she eyed the cell around them, but there wasn't really anything she could immediately see that would help them escape. Even through less traditional methods. The other guy in the cell was scrawny, more so than Jessi in terms of both general weight and muscles, but it didn't look like he'd be able to squeeze through the bars of the cell. She attempted to piece together a distracted apology. "Great. Sorry again. Just- on edge. It's been a weird day what with the pirates and all," the last part was a mutter as she peered closely at the door holding them, looking into the keyhole due to lack of other options. Best to start on an escape attempt immediately.

After a moment of hesitation she took the key from her neck and tried fitting it into the lock. Unsurprisingly, it didn't fit, and with a sigh she instead pulled a bobby pin from the back of her baseball cap. What with her hair being as long as it was, she found herself needing them frequently. Clancy used them often, too, and Jessi admittedly felt vaguely satisfied every time she was able to actually provide one for her. Clancy was always so much more prepared than Jessi was when it came to everything else.

Crouching slightly, she squinted one eye, fitting the pin into the lock and then realizing that she actually had no idea how this worked. Just… jiggling it around should probably do something, she guessed. She'd seen that sort of thing in a couple of movies and this was really as close to being in a movie as she would ever get. Despite the dim lighting, she could see the inner mechanisms of the lock well enough to attempt to poke at them with the pin. But she had no idea what actually went where or served what purpose, so it didn't help much.

"Pirates?" Echoed the other guy in the cell, sounding surprised. He still hadn't moved from the back wall, though he'd lowered his hands. He still looked vaguely distrustful of her. "You're involved with pirates?"

"I mean, no, I'm not _involved_ with them," Jessi said, grunting as she twisted her arm into a painful position to try and jostle a particular mechanism inside the lock. Her wrist protested the movement. "Unless you count getting captured by pirates as 'being involved' with pirates, in which case yeah, sure. We're involved."

"Captured?"

"Yes," Jessi turned to look over her shoulder, irritated with the distraction as well as his general cluelessness. He was just mimicking her words and turning them into questions. "We are _literally_ in the same cell. You were obviously captured, too." As she glanced back at him, she caught his somewhat alarmed gaze and narrowed her own eyes. "Unless you're a guard."

He raised a hand to his chin thoughtfully, though the gesture didn't mirror the lost expression in his face as he studied the floor. " _Am_ I a guard...?" He muttered.

"Do you… do you not know how you got here?" Jessi's hands stilled, caught off-guard.

"I, uh…" he pressed one hand to his forehead, looking confused as he thought the question over before finally offering a meek shrug. "I guess I don't."

"You guess," Jessi repeated flatly. She could feel her brain tossing its figurative hands up in the air because apparently it was just so difficult to meet anyone normal around here. It was easier to focus on the lock, and she turned back towards it to jostle the pin around as harshly as she could without snapping it in half.

"Well I remember getting put in here," he explained, "as in this cell specifically. But I can't figure out why I'd be on a pirate ship in the first place."

"You and me both," Jessi said. "That means you're from the real world, I take it."

"I'm sorry?"

"The real world," she repeated, turning her head back towards him to make her voice more audible. "You know. Our world."

"What other world _is_ there?"

"Oh, god," Jessi muttered, and finally gave up with the lock, tucking the pin into her pocket as she stood up straighter. "You can't seriously tell me you thought all of this was normal. When's the last time you saw a pirate ship in 2018?"

He stared at her for a second or two, searching her gaze as if trying to determine how serious she was. "2018."

Now it was Jessi's turn to do the same. "What year did you think it was?"

"The... present?" He guessed tentatively. "I don't know. 2018 sounds right, now that I think about it. But there's plenty of pirates still around out there, ya know."

"No. I don't know," Jessi crossed her arms. "Where are you from? A city, a country. Something." She figured she could at least be grateful that his amnesia only seemed to revolve around his identity, though she wondered how that worked. He clearly knew what a pirate was. There was _something_ in that skull of his.

"I don't-"

"Fine. What's your name? You never actually told me who you are."

He shook his head silently. His eyes were moving rapidly across the floor, back and forth as though searching it would bring something back to his memory. Like he was trying to read words that weren't quite there, just out of reach of his empty gaze.

"You're kidding me," Jessi said. She'd hit her head, what, four times within the last two days? And _she_ didn't have memory issues. What had happened to this guy? "You don't remember anything? Nothing at all?"

"No," he said, and his voice was so forlorn that she thought he was finally accepting the full brevity of the situation. She wondered what that was like, trying to search your brain for… anything. Anything about who you are or what you had done in your life. Searching and finding nothing. "It's lookin' like I don't." He paused, pulling his gaze away from the floor. "Y'know, it's funny-"

"How's it funny?" Jessi, who failed to see anything funny about being stuck with a completely clueless amnesiac, demanded.

"Well," he amended hastily, "it's not… it isn't a 'haha' sort of funny. But it's funny in a way." He shook his head once more, some sort of disbelief crossing over his face. "I didn't think about any of this before. How did I not notice?"

"It's not like you'd remember that you forgot anything," Jessi pointed out. Subtly, she continued to study his appearance. There was something familiar about him- enough that it bothered her. She had the sudden thought that maybe Ray would recognize him. Unless there was just a wildly unnatural number of people from the real world in Neverland, there was a chance he actually _was_ a character. It's not like he'd know it, but it was a possibility.

But perhaps she was just hopeful she'd have a reason to get back to the castle with someone to drop off- Oswald could put him to work on figuring things out, if he could be prompted to remember anything, and maybe Jessi could stealthily leave without Ray. It was better than leaving her out here in Neverland. Besides, getting dropped off at a castle technically counted as a quest so she'd probably be satisfied. Maybe.

In any case, she would have to bring this guy to meet Ray one way or another. She stood the best chance of recognizing him if he was a Disney character, and the familiarity of his voice prompted Jessi to believe he was. It was annoying, the way it nagged at the back of her mind. It was just not quite familiar enough to place it. All she could identify was that he was Midwestern, maybe. He kept dropping the end of his words, and his dialect was so much more noticeable than even Jessi's. An old-fashioned sort of accent, she thought.

"I think I know you," she admitted finally.

"Ya do?" He sounded surprised and tentatively hopeful. She supposed he would be, given he'd just discovered he had no actual identity all of three minutes ago. "We've met before?"

"Well, no," Jessi corrected herself, and now that she knew that she _should_ know who he was she was vaguely frustrated with herself. It was like having a name on the tip of your tongue. That same sort of gap you can't quite fill in. "We've probably never met personally. But you sound like… like I've heard you before," she said, not certain how best to explain anything to someone with no foundation to build off of. She wasn't about to attempt to explain how their worlds worked, or that there were two separate-yet-connected worlds to begin with, or what Disney was.

"Oh," he said. "I… I guess I-"

"Here," Jessi closed her eyes. "Say something real quick. I can figure this out."

"Huh?"

"Something with actual words. Like 'I hate pirates'."

"I… beg your pardon, but I'm not sure-"

"God," Jessi shook her head, opening her eyes back up. Annoyed, she ran a hand over her braid. Her fingers caught on the tangled stray hairs that had flown loose from it. "It's right there. Ray's never gonna let me hear the end of it for not being able to figure it out."

"Ray?"

Jessi sighed as if the name had prompted her to remember the full circumstances of the situation. In a way, it had. She didn't really have time for a friendly conversation with her cellmate- she had to get him out of here and finish scouting so a bunch of kids didn't call her out for getting captured by a bunch of incompetent pirates. "In about an hour a bunch of kids are going to attack the ship. I need to finish scouting for them to give them an advantage."

He furrowed his brow, and despite everything his tone was vaguely judgemental. "You're lettin' a buncha kids fight pirates?"

"Believe me, I'm not thrilled with any of this, either, but the circumstances are a little weird right now. Are you any good at lockpicking?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Guess not," Jessi handed him the bobby pin anyways as she walked past him. "Good time to find out."

He eyed it, and then looked back at her. "Are you serious?"

"You really can't make this situation any worse," Jessi said honestly.

He didn't seem entirely certain about that, but he knelt down to give it an attempt anyways. Jessi sat herself down on one of the uncomfortable wooden cots on the other side of the cell and reflected on how easily her belief was suspended after going through several days of nothing but nonsense. How she couldn't help but think that she was just as ridiculous as everyone else just for not being able to respond to any sort of situation properly anymore. She'd never met anyone with a complete lack of knowledge about who they were before and yet she was barely even surprised. It was just another inconvenience. That was all this whole quest thing was shaping up to be, she thought. Inconvenient.

Her plan currently was vague at best. Mainly, she needed to get out of the cell. Even if she didn't manage to gather any information on what the kids would be up against she didn't want to be so useless as to remain trapped down here while they had to rescue her. It would just be a distraction for them- and dangerous, maybe. Regardless of what happened after, assuming any of them lived, she'd have to go to the castle first-thing. Ray and the stranger would be easily dropped off there and she could continue on without having to worry about anyone else.

...Now that she thought about it, 'the stranger' wasn't really a great name to call someone.

"You must have something you've been going by since you lost your memory," Jessi said. "A name you call yourself."

"Not really," the man said, squinting intently into the keyhole. "Far as I can tell I must've lost it just a couple days ago. That's when I woke up, anyways." His movements were slow and slight- he was very deliberately and carefully prodding at the lock with the pin.

"Really? You just ended up in the middle of a pirate ship with no clue what was happening?"

"Seems so," he said. "Woke up on the deck. They didn't take too kindly to it."

"I can imagine," said Jessi, wondering if maybe he had fallen from the real world after all or if that was something that happened to the displaced Disneys, too. She couldn't make up her mind about which world she thought he was from. "I guess we can call you John Doe for now."

"John Doe?"

"It's what we call coma patients where I'm from," Jessi explained. "Or just people without family and identification. People without real names that they can remember."

He paused in his motions for a second before resuming them. "Fitting." His voice was quiet.

Jessi couldn't imagine what it must be like. Having everything taken away from you and not even knowing how or why or if there was a way to get it back at all. Was everything well and truly gone, or were his memories waiting behind a locked door that he just didn't have the key to? She'd said he didn't have a family, but what if he did? What if he was thinking about the fact that he might have someone he cared about that he couldn't even remember?

A clicking noise suddenly pulled her out of her thoughts, and she looked up in time to see John Doe pull back from the keyhole with a look of surprise as the door to the cell swung open. They both stared at the open door in astounded silence for a solid several seconds as if it might swing back closed and lock again if they took their eyes off of it.

"...You know how to lockpick, I guess," Jessi said slowly after a great length of time had passed.

"Yeah," he agreed, looking at the bobby pin like it held the answers to all his questions and shrugging at Jessi. "Y'know, it's awful strange- soon as I looked in there I just knew how everything worked."

Jessi attempted to think up a list of Disney characters who could definitely pick locks and came up blank. "Are you coming with me or staying in here?" She asked without really thinking about it, because if he was a Disney then he was potentially someone she was supposed to be finding anyways.

John Doe glanced upwards at the deck above their heads. "Nothing'll happen if I stay in here."

"Yeah, well, a pirate battle will probably happen if you come with me. Maybe you should weigh your options a little bit."

"I don't think I'm much of a fighter," he said, which Jessi thought was obvious from how much of a twig he was. He paused uncertainty for a moment, but when he answered it was with a certain conviction. "But I'm with ya."

"I think you missed the pirate battle part of that sentence."

"I'm gonna help. In any way I can. You helped me get us out of here," John pointed out, and he held up the bobby pin.

"You know that's an unhealthy amount of loyalty to give to somebody you met ten minutes ago, right?" Jessi prodded. All she had done was give him a fake coma patient name and a pin.

"Is it?" John asked, and he hesitated for half a second before the conviction returned to his eyes. "I guess so. But I don't care. I can't just sit back and wait without helpin'."

"So you've got bad survival instincts," Jessi said, swinging the cell door open wider. "I'm learning so much about you already."

"That makes two of us," John said.

"Yeah, well, don't write it down or anything. Those traits describe, like, 95% of Disney protagonists. Basically the only option you've eliminated is… I don't know. Scar, I guess."

"Who?"

Jessi wondered if this was how Ray felt whenever she talked to Jessi about Disney. Or, rather, attempted to _teach_ Jessi anything about Disney. "Forget about it. I'm Jessi Marcelo."

She held her hand out for a shake, if only for the sake of politeness, and John stared at it in open bewilderment.

"It's a handshake," Jessi said slowly after a couple of full seconds passed in awkward silence. "You can't have forgotten what a handshake is."

"Oh," John said, still looking confused. "No, I… 'course I know what a handshake is. I'm not… sure why I'm so surprised," he shook his head as he reached out to grasp her hand in his.

"Maybe you didn't have arms before," Jessi suggested.

"What?"

"Never mind. Christ, you ask a lot of questions. Let's go," Jessi said, and thought internally that she would have to hurry up and get over this feeling of personal responsibility if only so she could stop getting saddled with travelling companions. At least she didn't have to worry about him like she did Ray. Ray was a better fighter, probably, or at least as good as a twelve year old could be at fighting- she was scrappy and knew karate, if she was to be believed about that. John seemed to have the sort of attitude that would prompt him to _attempt_ to fight somebody, but he certainly didn't look like a fighter.

But he wasn't a kid. She didn't feel as bad about putting him in danger. And he could make himself useful in other ways. She took out the journal and handed it over to him after thinking about it for a second. "I've lost track of which pirates I have and haven't seen so you're in charge of keeping track of them now. Just make a tally or something. List some key traits."

John nodded. "I'll do my best."

"Good, because that's the price for coming with me. You have to be useful."

John gave her a funny look as they exited the brig. "Real sociable, aren't ya?"

"You have no idea."

Jessi discovered very quickly that the nice thing about John was that he was good at being quiet when the situation called for it. She wasn't sure she could say the same about Ray when it really came down to it. He was surprisingly stealthy, too- quick in his movements and very good at pressing himself into corners and small spaces to hide. He was aware of the space around him, more so than even Jessi was at times. He was so overly careful in making sure he was constantly hidden that she wondered if he was some sort of spy before. There had to be spy Disney characters, even if she couldn't really remember any spy movies off the top of her head. He picked up on footsteps easily, too. It was like he knew someone was coming long before they actually showed up. It was all a little strange, and Jessi found herself with more and more questions as they made their way through the ship with surprising quickness and efficiency. Every assumption she made about him felt somehow incorrect.

But he clearly took the situation seriously and that was as much Jessi could ask for given the current circumstances. They made their way up from the brig and through the hallways of the deck above it, taking notes on the nondescript pirates they spied as they peered around doorframes. The ship had no real color to it- it all blended together to the point that Jessi couldn't be certain they weren't walking in circles after a while. But John kept diligently making maps of the rooms on one of the blank journal pages and as far as she could tell they seemed accurate. He was one of those types with a good eye for detail, she guessed, or just a knack for figuring out spaces. Every time she glanced over at the book, he was filling out a whole page with remarkable detail either in illustrated or written form. A lot of effort for a ship they were going to leave after one trip, she thought, but then again he had no way of knowing that.

The whole affair went rather smoothly and their trip continued in complete silence for the most part. It was all _too_ flawless, actually.

"I don't know where Hook is," Jessi whispered as the two of them crept up the next staircase. She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but they'd made relatively quick work of progressing through the hallways so she didn't feel too bad about their current situation. As long as they didn't get thrown back in a cell before the kids showed up it didn't matter so much. "I haven't even heard him yet."

"Which one's Hook?" Asked John, looking over his scrawled notes in the journal. Jessi was impressed with the sheer level of description he put into details that seemingly weren't noteworthy in the slightest. She never would have grasped as much detail from some random background pirates as he had. But maybe it wasn't all accurate and he just made assumptions about people. She didn't really have time to read what he was writing.

"He's got a hook," said Jessi, who couldn't really remember any other key traits about him other than that. He wore red, she thought, but didn't feel confident enough in that fact to list it. He also might have an ugly perm, now that she thought about it further.

"Kind of on the nose," John said, arching an eyebrow at the name.

"That's just what it was in the book," Jessi said. "They didn't have any say in it. Although Walt wasn't known for his creativity when it came to names, anyways. I mean, _Mickey Mouse_. Seriously."

John stopped suddenly, so abruptly that Jessi didn't notice at first and had to double-take and make her way back to him after a moment or two. His expression had switched to something more serious, and he was doing that thing with his eyes again- searching the floor for answers. "I have no idea what you're talkin' about, but I know that name," John said, and he sounded entirely serious. Not that he had been anything but honest regarding his identity before or anything. Jessi was about to ask if that meant he _hadn't_ lost all of his knowledge of Disney, and if there was a chance he actually _was_ from the real world (she could really just leave him right then and there, if that was the case), but then he continued. "That was in the note."

"Note?" Asked Jessi. Though she wasn't sure how important all of this was, a note mentioning Mickey or Walt sounded promising. They were bound to be important, or at least Mickey was, even if he didn't know magic (unless he did, she wouldn't really know one way or another). And Oswald would appreciate it, though that didn't matter so much to Jessi. It just seemed like someone they should find the location of.

She glanced into a room that was adjacent to them, scanning it from around the door frame to make sure it was empty before pulling John into it and setting a chair in front of the door to barricade it from outside entry. It was mostly bare save for a hammock and a set of drawers, which Jessi took the liberty of checking just to discover they were empty. They were low enough below sea level that there wasn't any windows. As she searched the room, she asked, "what note? That seems like a pretty big detail to conveniently neglect to mention."

John dug into one of his pockets and produced a folded up scrap of paper, clearly ripped hastily from something, and handed it over to her. "Had it on me when I woke up," he said. "I guess I forgot about it until now." Which was fair, she supposed, given how much of a frantic blur the following minutes had been.

Jessi unfolded it. _Mickey_ , it said, and then there was a _+Donald?_ tacked onto the end of it. There was one other word written at the bottom. _Badge_. It was like a grocery list or something. A hasty reminder, not anything of substance.

"Was this a note you wrote, or a note someone else gave to you? Who was it addressed to?" Jessi asked as she squinted at it. It was actually really unhelpful, and generally unimpressive. The handwriting was strange and didn't quite match John's, either- it was like whoever wrote it was struggling greatly to even hold the pen. More weight to the theory that maybe John just didn't have arms, whatever he had been before, although the theory seemed too ridiculous to really consider. She turned it over in her hands, but the other side was blank. John probably wouldn't know any more than she did.

"Beats me," said John, which was about the answer Jessi was expecting. "Might be helpful if somebody'd signed the darn thing."

"And I guess you wouldn't have any idea who Badge is, either," Jessi wagered, somehow entirely unsurprised that John was the type of person to genuinely use 'darn' as an expression. Then again, they were in Disney.

"Not a clue."

Jessi handed the note back to him and he tucked it into the back of the journal. "It's not very helpful," she admitted.

"Nothin' seems to be. You'd think I would've bothered carrying around identification or somethin'."

"Hindsight's 20/20," said Jessi. "But I wouldn't worry about it that much. You're weird enough that someone's going to recognize you if they knew you before. Something will make somebody remember."

John gave her a look that implied he was moderately offended by the statement, and Jessi shrugged.

"It's a good thing. You could've been nobody in particular and then how would you ever learn anything about yourself?" She pointed out. He had his strange stealthiness and his quirky way of speaking, at least. It wasn't much, but it was something.

Before John could respond to that, he fell silent just as footsteps passed outside the door, and then Jessi carefully removed the chair from in front of it and opened it just enough to peer through the crack after just a second or two. John followed her lead and clammed up, twisting the pen aimlessly between his fingers though he didn't move towards the door just yet. He was thinking something over, she could tell from the expression on his face. He was bad at hiding his thoughts.

Jessi was relieved beyond belief to realize that she actually _knew_ the pirate crossing the hallway this time around. Or at least she vaguely remembered the outfit. The stripes were very distinct.

"Somebody we've already seen?" Asked John, journal at the ready after Jessi pulled back slightly from the frame. He must have seen the look of recognition in her expression.

"No," said Jessi once the figure had passed out of sight entirely, and she opened the door slightly wider. "It's Hook's sidekick guy. I can't remember his name… but I guess that means he's still here."

"Why wouldn't he be?" John tried to peer around Jessi, which wasn't entirely successful given he was at least a couple inches shorter than her and Smee had already turned down another branch of the short hallway they were in.

"Complicated. Don't worry about it." Jessi slipped through the door and beckoned John to follow her quietly.

"Don't ya think we should wait a little longer?" John asked nervously, not budging from the room but still attempting to crane his head far enough around the doorway to catch a glimpse of Smee, as though he might change his mind and march right back to throw them in the brig again. Or worse. Jessi didn't really know the different types of pirate punishment. Hanging was probably the next option. That or walking the plank. She wondered if the crocodile was still here.

She gave him a look. "Have you seen these guys? They're beyond clueless. He's not going to notice us even if we're three feet behind him."

"Can't be too careful," John said.

"We don't really have time for caution," Jessi said. "We've wasted too much of it already."

"Aren't you worried about bein' caught again?"

"To be entirely honest with you, my capacity for any sort of emotion currently is like, below zero," Jessi admitted frankly.

"That's awful," said John, who seemed genuinely upset at the concept.

"It's been a hell of a week," Jessi said. "And the week isn't even over yet." But at least she was capable of recognizing it and owning up to it. Surely that counted for something.

John eyed the hallway again. "You'll have to tell me about it if we get out of this."

"Ray would love to tell you all about it," Jessi muttered. "She'll twist the whole thing in her favor, but she's probably a much better storyteller than I am. And she's gonna be all over you."

"Huh?"

"If she can't figure out who you are within two seconds of meeting you it's going to bug her for the whole rest of the trip," Jessi said, and despite the sense of urgency pricking at her she leaned back against the doorframe, standing opposite of John. It was almost funny to consider, though maybe she was just slightly hysterical in-between her periods of indifference. That seemed likely. "She knows Disney way better than I do."

"Trip? You're goin' somewhere?" He asked. Jessi was realizing more and more that she was right about him asking a lot of questions, and then she wondered why he was asking this in the first place. He seemed to be weighing something- his look was calculating.

"It's complicated," Jessi said again, and after a second she continued. She could at least explain something right out of the gate. "But I think you'll have to come with us to where we're going. Even if Ray can't figure you out, Oswald might know. And he's going to want to see that note."

John studied her expression for a while, surprised she had even decided she was bringing him along, and then shrugged. "Not like I've got anywhere else to go."

"Exactly," said Jessi. At least it was easy with John. He could get dropped off at the castle and Oswald could deal with figuring it out. It was going to take all of Jessi's patience just to stick with Ray, assuming she wasn't able to ditch her at the castle. She jerked her head out towards the hallway. "Let's go while the floor's still clear. We still need to figure out where Hook's buddy went off to."

John nodded in confirmation, much more satisfied now that they'd waited a good amount of time for the sake of safety (Jessi was far less pleased with this) and the two of them slipped out of the doorway, one after the other. "Should've set a timer somehow," Jessi said as they rounded the corner, checking the doors on either side of them before continuing on. Their checks were less thorough as they continued, their voices less whispered as their guards dropped. "I honestly have no idea when Ray and the others are planning to show up."

John dug around in the pocket of his shirt for something, and then looked back up at Jessi with a shake of his head. "I don't have my pocketwatch on me."

"Wouldn't have helped anyways," Jessi said. "I don't even know when I got on- wait, you had a pocketwatch?"

"...I'm not sure," John said slowly, the realization of the weight of his seemingly habitual action hitting him at the same time as Jessi. "But I might've."

"So you're old," she wagered. He looked to be somewhere in his late twenties, actually, or perhaps his early forties at max, but the thought of anyone genuinely carrying around a pocketwatch was bizarre.

"No," John said defensively. "Lots of people use pocketwatches."

"Not really," said Jessi. "This is probably like the pirate thing, how you thought they were still around regularly. Wherever you're from, it's-" she paused suddenly, head turning towards the staircase at the end of the junction. John clammed up, though he still looked mildly irked.

She recognized the voices speaking up above them, though she couldn't make out the exact words they were saying. They were too muffled. One of the voices was clearly the henchman guy they'd seen pass outside of the room (what was his _name_ ), and the other's cadence was much more harsh. And incredibly easy to recognize. "I think we're under the captain's quarters," she said under her breath, and John followed her gaze upwards. There was a third voice, too, now that Jessi focused in on it, but it wasn't remotely familiar. Another pirate, she guessed. It didn't really matter.

"So now what?" John asked quietly after the two of them stood in silence and listened for several seconds.

Jessi pursed her lips, running a few things over in her mind. If Hook had been holed up in there all day it probably meant he was working on something. There was no way he knew that the Lost Boys were planning on taking the ship at this exact day, so it was either a coincidence that he was so prepared or he was working on something else. Either way, she didn't like the thought of him having any sort of advantage if it really came to a battle.

"We have to wait until he leaves the captain's quarters," she said. There was no way they'd be able to get him out without one of them getting caught, and though she had no attachment to John she felt guilty considering leaving him to get re-captured or hung or thrown overboard. Besides, he could have been someone important. Like Goofy or something. "Even if we have to wait until the kids show up. You can guard the door once he's out of there and I can go in and take whatever papers he's got. Something has to be important enough to bring back to the castle." But she wasn't entirely sure about that. "I don't like the idea of just sitting and waiting," she said once she caught John's eye, "but we don't have any other choice." Not without putting one of them in danger, but she didn't admit that.

"Waiting it is, then," John said, and looked towards one of the rooms behind them. "Could we still hear 'em in there?"

"Could probably hear their footsteps if they left, at least," Jessi said. "And that's what matters right now. We'll barricade the door."

John nodded shortly, and Jessi was briefly thankful that he was good at following commands, generally speaking. He argued less than Ray and that was all she could really ask for given the circumstances.

The room was empty, though they checked every corner and drawer just to make entirely sure of that before barricading the door with a chair and desk and set of drawers. There wasn't much else in there but a hammock, which John perched himself on while Jessi stood by the window, looking out over the sea.

For many long minutes, they both listened in silence for an opportunity to finish the job before the clock ran out, one way or another.

* * *

AN: And here's the third member of our traveling party, John Doe. He's either an OC or a Disney character. Who knows.

The last party member will be introduced next chapter- I was hoping to wrap things up regarding introductions this chapter but it ended up stretching on for so long as is (John just talks so much). We'll probably wrap things up in Neverland as well, either next chapter or the start of the one after that.

As always, thank you for reading and if you have any comments, concerns, critiques, or questions, please leave a review!


	7. The Convergence

Chapter Seven - The Convergence

'"Are you meeting people?"

Yeah, she thought, you people.

"Not intentionally," she said.'

\- _Rainbow Rowell_

* * *

It was a long time before they were able to leave the room and approach the captain's quarters. Or, at least, it felt like a very long time to Jessi, who had quickly grown bored of listening to essentially nothing while John kept himself entertained by running his hands through his hair like he was surprised that he even had any at all. For a while she tried to distract herself by thinking of things like how long it had been in their world while she was stuck here and if Herman had gotten himself hurt already and if their mother missed them and what exactly the worlds being destroyed really entailed.

The thoughts grew old quickly. It wasn't as though she had thought of much else since her arrival.

So instead she chose to count birds as she spotted them flying over the waves, but the birds turned out to be circling the same area of water repeatedly so it was all one group and she only actually got to twelve and then that was over with.

She wondered again how long it was before Ray and the others got here, and realized she still had no idea how many pirates they would be up against. She wasn't sure she cared anymore. All she knew was that she was going to take whatever Hook had that was worth stealing and then… well, that was about all she had thought of. Truthfully, she wasn't even sure she wanted to be involved in the fight at all. Given the way Neverland operated, even if they won it wouldn't be a very decisive victory and any peace that resulted certainly wouldn't last long at all. Maybe they could just have the upper hand long enough to get everyone off of the boat and then Jessi could leave and everyone else could fight in the ocean. Let the mermaids get involved or something. Spice things up for a change. She'd be doing them a favor, she reasoned.

Jessi was pulled out of her thoughts by the sudden sound of footsteps on the deck above them. _Finally_. She looked across the room and locked eyes with John, who tilted his head upwards to listen as the two above them moved across the room.

The door above them opened and then closed, and the footsteps continued across the deck. There was silence for a few seconds. Jessi counted them under her breath, moving quietly closer towards the door, eyes trained upwards.

"We should go now," she whispered.

John nodded his agreement, and the two had to try to remain as silent as possible while swiftly removing themselves from the room and making their way to the top deck. For the first time in a while, they'd been graced with the luck of not running into anyone as they ascended the stairs, though they had to keep their heads ducked low as one pirate passed close to the stairwell leading to the top deck. Once they were in the clear, they sprinted towards a small cluster of crates near a pile of rope. It was a decent enough spot for one person to crouch behind, but the two of them were rather obvious and Jessi chose to keep things quick. They had already discussed their plans, and it was all fairly straightforward. Get in, look for _anything_ , get out. Maybe steal something. Maybe trash the place- that hadn't really been part of the discussions, but Jessi thought it was a rather sound part of the plan regardless.

"Alright," Jessi said under her breath, and slowly stood up after scanning the area again, motioning with one hand for John to remain crouched behind the crate. "You keep watch. If someone starts to get close, just, uhh… let me know. Somehow. Do a bird call or something."

John furrowed his brow. "Do I know any bird calls?" he asked himself. Jessi sighed, and was about to tell him to just forget about the whole thing, but John spoke up again before she could with a shake of his head. "Never mind. How about I just whistle instead?"

Jessi studied him for a second. " _Can_ you whistle?"

"I think so. Otherwise I wouldn't have suggested it," John pointed out, though he didn't look entirely convinced. He seemed constantly surprised by his own words.

"Oookay. Well. That... works," Jessi said with a shrug, as there wasn't much more time left to argue, though she wondered if that would just attract attention to him rather than her (and then wondered if he was aware of and okay with that). She wasn't particularly against the idea of John getting captured in her place, though it did mean she was down one potential link to someone who could very likely be at least somewhat important.

Shaking it aside, she gave John a thumbs up before hurrying to the door and slipping into the room and shutting herself in. If he was willing to give himself up to become imprisoned rather than her, that was his own business. She would deal with it if it came to that.

Once inside, she shifted a chair and a couple other various objects sitting around nearby in front of the door, creating a makeshift barricade just as they'd done previously. It wasn't going to be effective, not really, but it gave her a second to prepare if someone _did_ try to get through the door. It would at least be noisy.

She paused for a few seconds to make sure she couldn't hear any footsteps or voices outside, and then let out a short breath of satisfied relief, turning to study the room she was in. She only vaguely recognized the layout from the movie, but she didn't take the time to dwell on that fact. She'd already seen more of this ship than she cared to think about, and the coloring of the floor and the walls was strangely unnatural in the same way Oswald was. It was difficult to focus on and only grew more confusing the more she tried to understand it. This entire thing was more of a headache than she could be bothered to deal with.

Instead, Jessi hightailed it towards the desk, running her hands over the papers atop it, shifting them to the side to search underneath. She scanned through most of them, looking for significant names or places. Most things didn't matter at all- notes scribbled down regarding business on the ship or, more often than not, Peter Pan. Perhaps worth grabbing under any other circumstance, but she didn't particularly want to become involved with him in any capacity. There was some speculation on the events taking place in Neverland over the last couple days, which didn't prove anything other than Hook probably didn't have anything to do with whatever had happened. She figured none of his guesses were correct enough to bring back to the castle to show the others, and instead tossed them to the side, letting the papers fall off the desk and onto the floor. She quickly tried the drawers of the desk, but found them to be locked, and with a frustrated grunt she went back to searching atop the desk.

She didn't have to look much longer before she found something of interest. A map- a map of a place that clearly wasn't Neverland, given it wasn't an island and featured no beaches or forests. But it looked to be a work in progress. The basic land shape was outlined, and things such as rivers and dots that perhaps corresponded to cities had been made, but there was no labels on it. There wasn't even an X to mark the spot or anything, just a handful of circled areas of interest… or markings that indicated something else. She couldn't be sure, not without knowing where it was a map of.

But someone at the castle might know. They _had_ to know, surely at least one person had a basic understanding of geography. Assuming, she thought, that this world even bothered with concepts such as geography. For all she knew it was constantly moving, nothing staying in its proper place. That would be befitting of a freakishly annoying cartoon world.

Carefully, Jessi folded up the map and tucked it into her bag. Another scan over the few papers remaining on the desk revealed nothing more of particular interest, and she swiped them to the floor just as she had done with the others in a brief fit of smug spite. She tried the drawers one more time, debating whether it would be a safe risk to bring John in here to pick them open, and then did another quick scan of the room to dismiss the tingling on the back of her neck.

Her breath caught in her throat.

There was someone standing on the other side of the room.

He was next to the hammock, and Jessi was angry at herself briefly for not checking to see if it had been occupied when she'd walked in. This thought only lasted for a split-second, though, as her mind quickly processed the rest of the situation. The guy wasn't a pirate, or at least he didn't look like a pirate. He looked too young, around her age or a bit older. And he was wearing… well, frankly, he wasn't wearing much at all.

"Who are you supposed to be?" He asked.

"Why aren't you wearing _clothes_?" Jessi squeaked, not long after.

The man gestured pointedly at the red speedo he was sporting, and then at the sunglasses covering his eyes (indoors, Jessi might add), as if that ensemble counted as a proper outfit.

It did not.

"That's not-" Jessi found herself unable to speak, trying to keep her eyes pinned on the wall above the guy's head but discovering that it was hard to remain in control of the situation when that was the case. She cleared her throat, her mind simultaneously trying to process the sheer ridiculousness of the situation and decide which emotion she ought to be feeling, cycling from disgust to disbelief to rage. It wasn't even as though the guy was unattractive- he was obnoxiously conventionally attractive, on the other hand- but Jessi could think of very few things she wanted to see less than a man in a speedo at the current moment. Or any moment, upon further consideration. "Those aren't. Pirate clothes."

"I'm not a pirate," the guy said, sounding as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and then he cast a look at Jessi's outfit, lowering the sunglasses so he could peer over the top of them. It allowed her to see just how judgemental his gaze was, and it lingered on her ratty shoes and tangled hair. As if he was in any position to judge given his near lack of an outfit entirely. " _Those_ aren't pirate clothes."

"I know," Jessi said testily, and any feeling of being uncomfortable was replaced with indignation at the way he'd studied her. She felt less like she was defending herself against not wearing a pirate outfit and instead defending her choice in footwear, which was a lot more rational than wearing nothing but a speedo and sunglasses while on a pirate ship in a Disney movie. "It's not meant to be a pirate outfit. What are you- were you in the hammock? _What happened to your clothes_?"

The man was surprisingly calm with the whole situation, though he did sound annoyed at the line of questioning. "Are you really that hung up on it?" He sighed, and then sounded as though he was patiently walking her through the rest of the explanation. "You just broke into a pirate ship, _I_ was trying to take a nap on a pirate ship- there's more important things to worry about than my outfit. And this _is_ ," he cut off Jessi as she went to protest, "an outfit, okay? I'm wearing clothes. Don't you judge me."

"Barely," Jessi sputtered.

It was hard to see his expression given his eyes were covered by the sunglasses again, but she got the feeling he wasn't impressed by her response to the situation, and then his head tilted towards the desk behind her. Jessi could sense the shift in the conversation before it actually took place. "Looking for something?" he asked, and Jessi suddenly felt very wary about the fact that he had been chilling in the hammock in the captain's room. Perhaps she had misjudged the pirate outfit thing. Perhaps he was still associated with Hook.

She studied his face for a second or two, trying to dissect his tone, and then thought that he wouldn't have asked the question if he had seen her steal the map for certain. But he had been smart enough to pull the power in the situation out from under her feet, robbing her of any proper line of questioning during her confusion. The ball was in his court, and the advantage in the conversation was his- Jessi really hated people who understood other people.

"Nothing," she answered curtly, still stuck in disbelief over everything about him. Then, as the first answer seemed rather weak, she added, "it's none of your business." An attempt to gain back steady footing.

"Wow," he said, but his tone wasn't even slightly astounded despite the set of her jaw and the purposeful lowering of her brow. "Someone's moody."

"You," she said with certainty, because her brain had finally decided on at least one thing, "are not from Neverland."

"I-" the guy looked at her (or at least she assumed he did). "You know about that?"

"...Yes?" Jessi guessed, suddenly unsure what he meant, but at least they both appeared to be equally surprised at this point.

"That I'm not from here. I mean, you're obviously not from here either," he gestured at her outfit with that same look of distaste. "But the pirates didn't really want to talk about it. Crazy. It's obvious, right? But they avoided it so much I was like, Jesus, I better not mention it or it'd blow their minds."

Jessi debated how much she wanted to tell him and then decided that the answer was, actually, nothing. She wanted to tell him nothing. Not yet.

She looked towards the ceiling for a moment before leveling her gaze at him again. "I'm not getting into any of that until you answer some questions first. You clearly know this is- well," she gestured around the room. "It's Captain Hook. Obviously. What are you doing in here? Do you- are you working with him?"

He'd looked at first as though he wanted to protest having to answer questions at all, but at that he opened and closed his mouth wordlessly before finding himself able to respond. "That," he said, raising a finger, "is complicated."

"Complicated?" Jessi echoed in disbelief. "No it isn't! You either are or you aren't."

"First of all, that view's going to get you nowhere in the real world. Come on now. Second of all, he and I, I mean, are we teammates or something? Uh, no. Are we enemies?" he paused. "...Not necessarily-"

Jessi stared in unabashed bewilderment. She'd been so used to expecting people like Kat and to Ray- people who also knew full well they were in a Disney film, but obeyed the laws of the universe well enough. Laws like 'don't team up with villains'. It seemed only natural for teenagers to want to join the Lost Boys, but what on earth was this guy hanging around with _Captain Hook_ for?

"You're working," she said slowly, as though wanting to confirm she had heard him right or perhaps simply trying to get a point across, "with a villain. A straight-up classic Disney villain."

"Don't phrase it like that."

"How else should I phrase it? You're not denying it."

" _He_ is working with _me_ , not the other way around."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"I could explain it if you would- you know what? Actually, no, I'm not going to explain it." He crossed his arms at her, the both of them reduced to petty arguments over rational discussions in the midst of indignant confusion. "I don't even know you, why should you get an explanation?"

Fair, thought Jessi, who was beginning to realize that she really didn't care what this guy was planning or doing in general and if they had to kick him off the ship with Hook then so be it. She'd gotten what she came for, anyway, and he didn't seem like he was immediately going to raise any alarms. She'd wasted way too long here talking about things that objectively didn't matter at all with a guy who was impossible to get a read on. Speedo boy and his perfect hair could be dealt with later, if it came to that. As it was, she just shook her head at him and turned towards the door.

"You're right. Forget it."

"Hey," the guy said as she made to exit, "I still don't know what you were doing in here. How'd you even get on the ship?"

"If you don't have to answer questions then I don't have to, either." She suddenly wondered if, given his outfit (or lack thereof), he'd just fallen directly onto the boat from the real world. "So it doesn't matter. I'm leaving now, anyway," she said over her shoulder.

And then he started to say something else, but Jessi didn't quite catch what it was. Another noise had distracted her for the moment, though it at first was difficult to pinpoint where it had come from or what it was. It'd been a sharp, high pitched noise from outside the room somewhere.

And the other individual in the room had heard it, too. "What was-"

"Shh," Jessi hissed, and turned towards the door just as she heard it again, louder this time. More frantic. And this time, Jessi recognized the two-tone note.

The first words that flew through her mind didn't suit Neverland much at all. In a wave of panic, and with the sudden realization that literally none of their previous conversation had mattered in the slightest, she grabbed speedo man by the shoulder and yanked him around the other side of the desk, attempting to push him into a crouch. But in the midst of his protests she was unable to get either of them out of sight in time before the door flew open.

The barricade was entirely useless, which made sense when Jessi noticed that the two pirates standing immediately behind Hook- and yes, it _was_ Hook- were incredibly large in both stature and strength. Positioned in the opened doorway of the room, their gazes were directly on the desk where Jessi stood half-crouching next to speedo boy, who looked vaguely annoyed but otherwise not out of sorts.

There was surprised silence all around for several seconds, and Jessi could practically see the puzzle pieces aligning behind Hook's eyes as his gaze suddenly snapped towards speedo guy, mouth quirking into a distantly familiar snarl. The silence was broken just like that, voice raising into something very near to a yell.

"I knew better than to trust you, boy!"

"Whoa, hey," speedo guy held his hands up placatingly, and though he sounded diplomatic Jessi could see what might have been slight panic in his tense face. Or perhaps it was just inconvenience. Watching the two of them, Jessi wondered how on earth he _had_ managed to get Hook to work with him if that was really the case. What were they even teaming up for to begin with? "Let's not be hasty, here! You and me, we had some good terms going on, alright? So-"

"-So here you are, working with a stowaway! A stowaway," Hook's gaze traveled towards the papers scattered across the floor, and his gaze snapped back to Jessi, "and a thief."

"I didn't take anything," Jessi lied.

At the same time, the other man made a noise of protest, spreading his hands out to begin the most poorly thought out pitch Jessi had ever heard. "Why is everyone assuming I'm working with someone else? It's all… it's a convenient, very temporary agreement. We're not _working_ , okay, it's just business. So let's all take a couple steps back-"

Hook jerked his head towards a couple of pirates hovering behind him, and when one of the larger ones advanced, Jessi noticed the ropes in his hands. In a last-ditch effort at peace, she held her hands up in surrender.

It went about as well as could be expected, and being tied to the mast was more uncomfortable than it looked. The discomfort may have been magnified by the complaining going on behind Jessi, though.

"This is your fault. I had a good thing going, I was _this_ close to convincing him to dropping me off somewhere tropical with a lot of gold. You-"

"You were not," Jessi spat, jerking her head sideways to try and glare at the guy tied to the other side of the mast, and she heard him exhale sharply in frustration. "He didn't seem even remotely interested in any of your stupid business talk back there. If you're honestly dumb enough to try working with _Captain Hook_ then it's your own fault." He had been playing him from the start, Jessi knew. But then, on the other hand, she got the impression that Hook had been played just as easily.

Was it so hard, she thought, to just make an honest and fair deal with anybody in this place? Why did it always have to be so annoyingly complicated in Neverland?

"Working with him is a _very_ strong way of phrasing it," he said, and she felt him jerk his hands towards the mast in an attempt to loosen the ropes. "It was a temporary alliance at best."

"Temporary alliance? You're just using synonyms at this point. It sounds more like you've just been lying to everyone to benefit yourself."

"You know what? Maybe that's true. And it's been working out great so far."

"You're currently tied to the mast of a pirate ship, most likely about to be executed."

"And guess which one of us got us into that mess? I had him wrapped around my finger right up until you walked in." He sighed, short and frustrated. "Not sure what you did to piss him off."

"I'm a good person," Jessi spat, and then paused. "Mostly. I mean, sort of. Just- good enough that villains don't let me lounge around in their hammocks! That's what I did to piss him off, I was a semi-decent individual who happened to not be working with him!"

"Those are some awfully big assumptions you're making there."

"You have _no_ room to comment on how good of a person I am. Zero. None."

"Yeah, well, you don't know anything about me, either! You can't criticize me just because I was trying to get off of this island using a slightly different method than you."

" _Slightly_ different?"

"You're sneaking around and trying to steal things. I was pretending to team up with a villain. Neither of us are shining beacons of moral purity here."

Jessi grit her teeth in indignant frustration and tugged at the bonds around her wrists, unable to find any protest against what he was saying. She just hated his smug attitude.

"I'm only trying to leave," she grunted as she yanked at the ropes, "because I have something important to do. I'm trying to help people. People other than myself." Sort of, at least. She felt that perhaps her argument didn't sound very strong when she knew it was a lie. She looked across the deck, and briefly saw John peer at them from over the top of the crate he was hiding behind before he ducked back down.

"Right. Okay. Sure." Speedo guy didn't sound wildly convinced. "Like who?"

"Like the backup I have coming," Jessi said. "A genuine temporary alliance, or... whatever you called it. Maybe you could learn from it."

Or she hoped as much. She strained her neck to peer towards the shore, wondering if they could see her tied to the mast and if that really mattered in terms of their attack plans. She felt as though _she_ hadn't mattered in terms of attack plans at all, and wondered what the point of all this was.

She found it hard to focus on much else but their bickering. Hook was having some sort of conversation with… she didn't even know, because they were over behind her back and craning her neck around the mast was awkward at best and painful at worse. John hadn't glanced out from his hiding spot since he had ducked back down, and Jessi somehow doubted he would be much help at all regardless. She couldn't even work up genuine concern over her safety because the whole thing was an annoying mess of posturing and waiting and she was sweaty and annoyed and her wrists hurt from the rope.

Their arguing faded after that, neither of them wanting to carry on with a topic that didn't seem to be getting them anywhere. Besides that, one of the pirates keeping an eye on them to make sure they didn't actually get the ropes loose was giving them stern looks and Jessi really didn't want to make the situation any worse than it already was. For the next couple of minutes they both twisted their wrists around in their ropes without much success, and then Jessi turned back to look at the crates John was behind, frustrated with his lack of helpfulness. The guy didn't seem like much of a fighter, sure, but hiding while they were stuck like this was just annoying.

Someone speaking loudly near her drew Jessi out of her thoughts, not for the first time that day, and she grudgingly tilted her head sideways to look at Hook. He was looking back at them, almost expectant.

"What?" Jessi asked, far beyond tired and fed up.

As displeased as Hook seemed with the fact that Jessi quite clearly hadn't been listening, he had no problem repeating himself. Disney villains, Jessi thought, and their tendencies towards the dramatic. His tone, though, was just short of an all-out growl. Actually, he seemed quite a bit more agitated than Jessi remembered. His voice wasn't as… well, it had never been straight-up _comedic_ from what she recalled, but it was a step in the other direction entirely. Noticeably so, now that she thought about it. Of course it made sense- he wasn't quite an actual cartoon, not in the way Oswald or the ship seemed to be. He felt more real than he would have otherwise, and naturally his voice couldn't sound as identical to whoever had voiced him back in their world. It was strange thinking of them that way. Like they were real people being portrayed by paint and voice imitations.

"I said," he repeated amidst it all. He raised one hand, and Jessi couldn't quite help her gaze widening at the gun in his grasp. "Which of you is first?"

"Just skipping the walking the plank thing entirely, then," Jessi said before she could stop herself. To her surprise, the man tied to the other side of the mast didn't immediately throw her under the bus to be shot first. His silence wasn't much better, though. "Didn't know you were in some kind of hurry or we would've stopped yelling at each other."

Though her tone had been wry, she didn't miss the way Hook's gaze flickered sideways, looking towards the treeline near the shore. Jessi followed his line of vision.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

If he didn't outright know about the oncoming attack, then he strongly suspected. Perhaps he had always suspected, given the way things operated in Neverland.

She squinted into the trees and saw the barest hints of movement.

What a colossal waste of time and energy this all turned out to be, thought Jessi, and then the treeline exploded.

Not literally. But the noise from the trees was rather loud as a bunch of kids shot out of them- and _that_ was literal, the way they launched into the air and over the boat. Out of the group of them, Jessi picked out Ray fairly easily due to her sweatshirt, though the relief was short-lived as she realized that they all had slingshots in their hands and she very much didn't trust their aim enough to not worry about getting hit in the head with a stone.

The guy tied to the other side of the mast flinched as they soared above them, and Jessi wasn't sure if he was caught off-guard by the flying kids part or the fact that the attention was instantly taken off of the two of them as the pirates started shouting. "What the-"

"That's my backup," Jessi said over the noise as shouting filled the ship around them. Clearly all of the pirates had been suspecting an attack- that or they were constantly prepared for it, because within mere seconds fighting picked up on the deck. She couldn't quite feel relief, though she was grateful for the distraction. More than anything she wanted to get out of here, wait out the fighting and then leave. Leave and never come back. This place was fifteen different kinds of annoying, even for Disney, and having extra people to keep track of now was an added pain. John, at least, could keep out of the way well enough. And… well, how easy would it be to just leave Ray? That would solve one problem.

In the midst of it all, Jessi tried to follow the battle as best she could, though it was all chaos as far as she could tell. Kat was only briefly leading the bunch, and then Jessi watched as she landed near the helm. Though it appeared she was attempting to direct the battle (Jessi couldn't entirely hear any orders she was providing), her position out of the way of any major scuffle was telling. Hook seemed to be busy trying to keep no less than three of the Lost Boys at bay, and the rest were really just going all-out with their slingshots. Because flying kids with rocks was surely as much of a battle plan as anyone needed.

Stones rained down all around them, and in the chaos of the shouting and the running pirates surrounding them Jessi spotted John again, this time weaving his way around the others. He must have remained behind the crates this whole time, and Jessi wondered how he had managed to remain undetected when he hadn't been subtle in watching the earlier proceedings. His whistle back when she was in the room had been loud enough to hear through the doors, surely someone on the deck must have heard that, too. Either the pirates were clueless or he was weirdly stealth-inclined despite it all.

As he approached them, he scanned the deck before darting out to retrieve a knife that had been knocked to the planks, and then returned to carefully start sawing away at the ropes.

"Hey," said Jessi, agitated, as she turned her neck to watch him saw away at their bindings, "thanks a lot for helping out earlier. You know, when he threatened to shoot us."

John looked briefly guilty, pausing in his actions only for the blink of an eye. "I would've stepped in if he actually went for it," he rationalized. "I had an eye on things. But I- I don't think I really could've fought him. It was safer to wait. Can't-"

"-be too careful, you said that earlier," Jessi groused. But she let the subject drop. She didn't quite take John for the type to just abandon her to the mast because she was grouchy, but she'd rather not see if this day could get any worse if she could help it. She felt one of the ropes fray enough that she could wriggle her wrists. "Hurry. You can just leave the other guy," she suggested.

"Leave him?" John glanced between the two, and then gave her a look. "Is that your idea of makin' friends?"

"I don't even know his name but I can promise you we're not friends."

"I can hear you," speedo guy complained, tucking his legs closer so as not to get them caught up in the scuffle on the deck. He looked rather displeased with the whole situation. "I'm right here."

John looked back towards him, apologetic. "Sorry, son." He turned his attention to the other guy's bonds as Jessi's ropes fell away entirely from her wrists, and she rubbed at the red marks that had been left behind before waving a hand to catch John's attention.

"I'm serious, just leave him," she said.

"Jessi..."

"He's working for Hook!"

John glanced between the two of them again at that, sitting back on his heels to better examine the situation at hand. "And that's… bad." He seemed uncertain.

"Yes! Yes, it's bad."

"I am _not_ working _for_ him," the stranger corrected, looking affronted.

"Okay, _fine_. It's complicated. Whatever. John, do whatever you want," she said, and she meant it because frankly she couldn't worry about keeping track of him when she still had to find Ray and, ideally, get out of the way of the fight until she could find some way to help without getting shot. "I'm not cutting him loose."

Over her shoulder, she saw John proceed with freeing him after looking at her for a moment, and she grit her teeth as speedo guy scrambled away from the mast as soon as the ropes were loose. Absently, she scanned the deck for Ray, but her attention was quickly drawn back to the helm. Yekaterina was waving her over, half-crouched behind the wheel.

"Just make sure you get out of the way," Jessi told John before he had the chance to turn away. "Out of sight again. Watch me, though. We're gonna get out of here sooner rather than later, I think."

"Aren't you going to help?" He asked, looking towards the ongoing skirmish.

"Are you?" Jessi challenged, and he drew himself up slightly.

"I could very well try," he said, and she wondered if she had vastly misjudged him and he was actually going to attempt to fight just out of spite.

"Why?" Jessi asked. "It isn't going to matter. It's not like we outnumber them now or anything. We've just got. Like. A handful of kids on our side."

He winced at that. "I'll admit, I'm not sure how I feel about kids using slingshots, of all things, but-" they both ducked into a crouch as one of the Lost Boys swooped over them, whooping. "-they're doin' pretty well."

"They aren't going to win this."

"Never underestimate the little people," John said.

"Do you read those in books or come up with them yourself?"

John made an uncertain gesture and Jessi shook her head.

"Never mind. Keep an eye on the kid in the green sweater for me, alright? I need to talk to her before we leave," she turned and pointed out Ray, who had taken a position up by the sails and was quite clearly having the time of her life.

John looked as though he had more to ask, but he settled on nodding in agreement instead. "Good luck," he offered, and Jessi watched as he dashed across the deck. He followed after speedo guy, who had opted to start climbing his way up to a higher portion of the ship over on the other end. John made an impressive leap up a couple crates and scaled it with practiced ease, which was slightly odd, but Jessi didn't have much more time to dwell on it.

She instead found her way to Kat, who hadn't moved a muscle throughout most of the fight. She was surprisingly straight-faced given the ongoings surrounding the, but then again it wasn't as though the battle was taking a serious turn any time soon. It was almost pathetic how much of a stalemate it had become, given how many pirates there were and who exactly they were fighting against.

"Hey," said Jessi, slightly out of breath after climbing the stairs so quickly to reach the helm. "Look, can we-"

"You should go," Kat said, cutting her off.

Jessi blinked. "Like… do you mean off the island?"

Kat nodded, and Jessi's shoulders slumped in relief, though her mind didn't quite understand why this was happening.

"Okay. Well, uh, actually, that's exactly what I was about to say. You guys seem to have everything under control and all, so… wait. You- what was all that about?" Jessi demanded. "The keeping track of pirates thing. Actually, going onto the boat in general. If you're just gonna let me leave before it's even over, I- I mean, I'm not complaining," she said quickly, "but you kind of just wasted my time. And a pretty big chunk of my sanity, I think."

And the battle wasn't even serious- it didn't even remotely matter, not like she'd at first believed. She ducked her head back behind the barrel again for half a second as a rock flew overhead and watched as Ray knocked another pirate on the head with a stone from her slingshot. She resisted the urge to pull her back down to safety- she was obviously faring better than Jessi was.

"I needed you out of the way," Kat said. "We had to get things ready. Aside from the battle plan."

"Things?" Jessi asked, eyebrows raising at the vague term. Why she bothered asking questions of teenagers who hardly knew what they were doing, she wasn't sure.

"Your transport out of Neverland," Kat said, and for a second she cast her gaze sideways towards Jessi. The way she held herself, suddenly tense about the shoulders, was suspicious. Trying too hard to act right in her choices, sure of her authority. Her tone didn't quite follow through. "I wasn't entirely honest about giving you the boat."

Jessi stared at her. "I'm going to need a whole lot more elaboration than that," she said finally.

"We don't quite have enough dust to get the ship off the ground long enough to actually make it anywhere. It's too big. And we had to use dust to launch our attack." She faltered. Jessi wondered where on earth the fairies had all gone off to, and how they'd managed to stay together and why nobody bothered to stockpile anymore fairy dust than whatever meager amount they apparently had left. "Our attack that we haven't even won yet."

And she wasn't sure if she _could_ win, Jessi thought. Even if they did, what would they do? Leave the pirates to die? Would that even work out given the way Disney seemed to operate?

Not like any of the questions really mattered.

"You lied about the dust?" Jessi, despite her best attempts at keeping her tone even, couldn't quite suppress the outrage she felt at being tricked by a teenager who had been sucked into this world straight out of Hot Topic. "You lied about being able to help me get off of this island?"

"I slightly exaggerated the amount of dust we actually have left," Kat crossed her arms, jerking her chin up in some sort of silent challenge, though her eyes briefly darted to the side. Like she couldn't keep up with the scale of her own games. "I didn't lie to you about being able to get you off of the island. I wasn't sure if you would agree to the deal if I told you the real plan."

"So you want us to just fly solo," Jessi guessed, already thinking of the height and trying to keep everybody in line and rationing out dust. "Great. Look, I needed the ship because I'm trying to get a _lot_ of people back to where I'm supposed to go. Ideally." Jessi didn't mention her doubts about the goal as a whole or the fact that she would rather die than have a whole ship full of Disney characters to transport around regardless of how much they could help the world from ending. "And I'm pretty sure a ship would be able to fly for a lot longer than we could."

"You're not going to fly solo. I have another form of transportation for you. Ray will take you there. That's what I meant when I said we were getting things ready."

As if she'd been eavesdropping up until that point (and she probably had), Ray suddenly landed behind Kat, momentarily pulling herself away from the bulk of the battle. Jessi was vaguely impressed at how well the other kids were keeping the pirates away from the helm, and out of the corner of her eye she watched John dart back over towards them, seemingly taking the fact that Ray was back with Jessi as some kind of signal to head back over. She _had_ told him to keep an eye on her. Speedo boy stumbled after him, arms over his head and ducking low. Honestly, Jessi was surprised he had survived so long, even being out of the direct line of action. She wondered if he was honestly just sticking with John because he'd cut the ropes off for him or if John had gone over there just to retrieve him.

Jessi looked back towards Ray, arching an eyebrow at the kid's smug expression. "I'm not taking Ray with me."

"No," Ray agreed, "But I'm taking _you_ with _me_! I know where the b- where, uh, the new transport is," she corrected herself, stubbornly deciding to keep it a secret and crossing her arms across her chest.

Jessi cast a look at Yekaterina.

"She's been given a crash-course on how to work with the dust," Kat said, arching an eyebrow to mirror Jessi's own, and Jessi hated that she couldn't get away from snide kids. How much of Kat sending Ray away was to eliminate any doubts regarding her shoddy leadership, she wondered? "And you haven't. You have to take her."

"Plus _somebody_ has to go and find Peter," Ray insisted.

"It can't be that hard to figure out how to get something flying. And," Jessi turned back towards Ray, "why do you still think this has anything to do with Peter Pan? He's not even remotely who I'm looking for. I could've sworn we already talked about this."

"Why are you always fighting about everything?" Speedo boy's accusatory voice sounded as he cautiously emerged from where he'd been crouched behind the helm. "She said we can get off this island so let's go already."

"You," Jessi began, "are not coming with me either."

"Who even is that?" Ray asked.

"He's nobody," said Jessi. "He's staying here. Look, I'll take Ray if I have to, and I already told John-"

"Who's _that_?" Ray asked again.

"John Doe," said John, and for a second it looked for all the world like he was about to bow but instead he went for a handshake after a moment of hesitation.

Ray squinted at him. "That's not your real name."

"Actually," Jessi said, "it is." But if Ray was sticking around for real then she'd have plenty of time to go over that later- after all, Ray stood the best chance of figuring out who he was.

While they'd been speaking, Kat had been focused on speedo boy. It was only then that she spoke up.

"Blaine Prescott?"

"Who?" Ray asked for the third time. This time around Jessi nearly echoed the question.

Kat glanced at Jessi. "He's a model."

Blaine arched his eyebrows pointedly at her.

"The Prescott family," Kat continued. The entire group ducked as a knife flew above them. "Everyone knows them."

"I don't-" Jessi paused, searching her memory for the name, and then shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"They're rich," Yekaterina supplied unhelpfully. It made sense, Jessi guessed. She was sixteen or something, teenagers were always into celebrities and rich families or whatever.

"Okay," Jessi shrugged. "That's great. For them. I guess." She wasn't quite sure why she should care in the slightest, and how out of touch she had to seem to not know about them, but it was by far the least important topic on her mind in that moment. "It doesn't really matter. Let's just… go. You're sure you guys have got this?" She asked just for the sake of confirmation- she already knew what the answer would be.

Kat nodded. Jessi didn't point out that she was very deliberately out of the way of the fight, not even giving orders. She supposed the actual hierarchy of the Lost Boys wasn't an important matter to be concerned about, given it was all one big game of pretend, but she found herself wondering how she would continue to hold them up if she kept going on like this.

"Great," she said again. "John, Ray," Jessi tilted her head, looking in the direction of the shore.

"We're gonna swim there," Ray said, falling far too easily into the leadership position she'd temporarily been gifted with. "I'm not wasting any dust on you guys."

"I- fine. Whatever," Jessi didn't have the energy to argue at this point.

"What about him?" Kat asked, pointing at Blaine. "He isn't staying here. He's too old to be a Lost Boy."

Jessi furrowed her brow. "So leave him with the pirates then."

"We're kicking the pirates off the ship as soon as we win," Kat said. "They're walking the plank."

Jessi strongly debated just telling her to send Blaine off the deck with them, but as annoying as he was she didn't exactly have a genuine enough reason to leave him to the sharks like that. Not to mention the fact that Hook clearly wasn't on good terms with him anymore, if he ever really had been in any capacity. She felt the slightest tinge of guilt for trying to leave him tied to the mast- she hardly knew the guy, after all, it wasn't really his fault he was aggravating when she was already having an awful time with just about everything. He clearly wasn't having a much better day.

She glanced at Blaine, and he raised his hands slightly. "Look," he said, "I just want to get off of this island. Drop me off in Hawaii. Or, like, Paris or something. I don't even care." He paused. "Actually, I do care. A bit. It has to be somewhere nice, I'm not going to Kansas or something."

She looked back to Kat. "Whatever transport you got is big enough for him to tag along so I can drop him off somewhere, right?" Her voice held nothing but exasperated defeat.

Kat nodded, and Jessi sighed.

"You," Jessi pointed a finger at Blaine, "are getting off at the first stop we make it to. The very first one. No matter where it is. Non-negotiable."

"Hold on-" Blaine started to protest.

"Come on," Ray whined, impatient. "I thought we were leaving ages ago! I already have to miss out on the rest of the fight for this, I didn't sign up for standing around and waiting, too."

Jessi glanced at her, and then looked back to the gathered group and found herself wondering just how she'd gotten stuck with as many people as she had. But as much as she hated them tagging along, she hated Neverland far more. Perhaps it was because she had so little to do with the series of events that had taken place there. That she was tired of being along for the ride when she didn't care about any of the proceedings. Or maybe she just wanted something rational to happen for at least a second.

"You can swim, can't you?" She looked towards John as Ray and Blaine moved to peer over the side of the deck at the relatively shallow water. Blaine looked athletic enough that she figured he'd be fine, though she couldn't say she felt any real concern one way or another in that regard. And Ray certainly intended to fly above them with whatever dust she had left.

John looked calculatingly at the waves. "I guess we'll find out," he said, not sounding very secure in the statement.

Jessi thought that summed up the whole trip rather well. The lack of planning. The whole 'nothing working out' thing. It would be fitting if they all drowned halfway to the shore, she supposed.

"Guess we will," she agreed. She looked over her shoulder to Yekaterina but said nothing in way of goodbye.

Beneath them, the water moved in quiet restlessness as voices echoed off of the railings of the ship, and Jessi realized as they made to jump that she would, quite frankly, far prefer the ocean to another second around anything to do with Neverland.

* * *

AN: So... finals happened, and that's kind of my only excuse. Sorry about the wait, but things should pick up from here.

Couple of things to cover. Firstly, we're finally done with the bulk of Neverland (at least the first visit, because it WILL be back later on) aside from the proper departure next time around. There's a good reason this one had very little in regards to proper Disney characters, and that was to introduce the companions that Jessi's been stuck with. John, Ray, and Blaine make up the traveling party, at least for the moment. They're going to be play pretty major roles and be around for a while. There's, of course, always more spots for other characters, but for now you can count on seeing quite a lot of these three.

Blaine belongs to MysticalMosaic, who is wonderful and has honestly provided so much inspiration and drive to continue in regards to this story and its characters, even aside from submitting an incredible OC (I really adore Blaine, even if Jessi only cares for insulting him).

Thanks to everyone else who's been reading and reviewing, it's very much appreciated.


	8. The Conveyance

Chapter Eight - The Conveyance

'"Ever travel by bus before?"

"No."

"Your mood's probably not going to improve much."'

- _Planes, Trains and Automobiles_

* * *

Jessi was really beginning to hate the jungles of Neverland.

Well. Not entirely accurate. She'd hated them already, but trudging through them when they were all tired and scratched up from dragging themselves onto the sand was less fun than it had been previously and that wasn't saying much at all. And though they'd all done decidedly well with swimming (although John, they discovered, wasn't keen on the ocean at all and Ray just flew above them to keep their papers dry), fighting to keep their heads above the waves had left all of them feeling bone-tired. Jessi thought her limbs were closer to jello than to muscle at this point.

She'd hoped that meant everyone was too tired to talk. She should've known that wouldn't be the case with Ray around. It was fortunate, at least, that she'd chosen to take it out on John rather than her. She had a seemingly endless supply of questions, the answers to which were mostly some variation of 'I don't know' on John's side of things, but that didn't stop Ray from jotting them down in the notebook regardless. Though John was tolerating this for the most part, it seemed to Jessi that even his patience was wearing thin. He'd already snapped at her twice over her treatment of the book ("don't hold it like that, it'll damage the spine!") as is, which either meant he was very fed up or he felt very strongly about books.

Ray assumed the latter. "Are you sure you weren't a librarian?" she was asking. "Or a teacher?"

"Ray," John suggested, and the exasperation on the edge of his voice was apparent, "how about we try this instead. I'll ask the questions and _you_ can answer-"

"What? Why?" Ray demanded immediately. "I'm trying to-"

"-and then I'll answer in turn. See? We learn about each other," John finished.

Ray didn't seem entirely content with that, apparently disliking no longer being in charge of the whole affair, but after a moment or two of contemplation she nodded.

"...Alright. Fine." But she kept the book open, and it was clear she still intended to write down answers.

"Favorite color."

"Aw, come on," Ray groaned, "that's a boring question!"

"But it's one I know the answer to," John pointed out, and despite how tired he must have been of the whole thing he was smiling just a bit, likely just glad to have gotten out of deflecting questions he didn't have the answers for. "I'm sure it'll still be helpful."

Ray sighed through her nose. "I _guess_. I like green. Blue's good too."

"Green's nice," John said after a while of thought. Jessi guessed it would be easier to answer questions like that. Just think about it and you know what you prefer. It's different than knowing your name or your house or your job. "But I prefer red, myself. Jessi?"

"Huh?" said Jessi articulately, who up until that point had been sort of distracted and had no plans to actually enter the conversation.

"Why's she gotta answer, I already know everything about her," Ray said. "She's grumpy, and-"

"Listen," John said, "we're gonna be stuck together for at least one trip, aren't we? It'll be a little more tolerable if we actually know each other."

"Pass," said Blaine, swatting at a mosquito and pulling a face. "I'll get back to you on that one, yeah?"

"Well… that's fine."

"What?" Jessi turned over her shoulder to give him a look. "Why does he get a pass and I don't?"

"Because he's getting eaten alive out here," John reasoned, gesturing with a hand. He had a point. There were already bumps forming along Blaine's arms from the bug bites. "And you folks have jackets."

Jessi didn't care for his reasoning, but she just rolled her eyes and faced forwards again regardless. She figured she should be grateful. Blaine seemed like once he got started talking about himself there would be no way to shut him up. Probably better that he was preoccupied this time around. "Grey, I guess."

"That's not really a _color_ ," Blaine said. "That's a shade."

"You said you pass, that means you don't have any say in this."

John was very good at ignoring their squabbling and didn't seem to extensively care one way or another if Jessi played along or not. Maybe he had just been trying to include her. "Favorite… animal," he decided, spotting a bird heading for the beach behind them.

"I like a different animal every day," Ray declared, "but today I like tigers."

"Why?" Jessi was unable to keep herself from asking. They hadn't seen any tigers today that she was aware of. She didn't even think there were tigers in Neverland.

"You can't ask a question until you've answered the last one," Ray said.

This was more trouble than it was worth. "I like dogs."

"That's the most boring answer. Everyone likes dogs!" But Ray didn't give her the chance to pick a different answer regardless and instead looked back over her shoulder at John expectantly.

"Y'know," he said, "I can't think of a favorite." They walked on in silence for a while longer before he said, "how about humans?"

Jessi couldn't see her expression, but Ray sounded horrifically offended. "Humans aren't animals!"

"They are," Jessi said, and then looked back with a critical squint. "Aren't you like thirteen or something? You should know this."

Ray averted her gaze. "I mean," she began, "I _guess_. I just didn't think about it like that. Saying humans are mammals is way different than saying we're _animals_."

Jessi didn't see how that was the case, but it was around that time that she began tuning the two of them out regardless. They tended to derail with each question they went through, and really didn't care one way or another whether or not Jessi or Blaine had input to provide. Maybe John was attempting to keep Ray out of everyone else's hair, in which case she had to admit he was doing a good job of keeping her distracted. At one point Ray had asked for least favorite insect (at which point it became apparent she was pulling questions from the jungle around them for lack of better ideas, as they were all becoming well-acquainted with mosquitos) and they'd engaged in a lengthy debate about whether spiders were insects (they were not).

John had stronger opinions about some things than others. He didn't care for grasshoppers, and the two of them spent a while discussing instruments (a topic Ray clearly knew very little about) before he recalled the name of the one he favored (ukulele). He had a very long list of animals he didn't care for, most of which were sensible enough (like cats, which Jessi didn't really like either because she considered them rather mean) but some of which were ridiculous. She wondered how he could stand to be outside at all, but he seemed content enough even with how miserable the jungle was. Maybe he was just recalling irrational fears from the back of his mind rather than real, solid preferences.

Throughout this Jessi and Blaine ignored each other in not-quite-companionable, very grumpy silence. John had been right in that Jessi was doing better off just by virtue of having her jacket with her. And pants, for that matter. She wished mostly for the sake of her own eyes that they'd had a chance to get proper clothes for Blaine while still on the ship, but it was far too late to go back now.

Jessi was pretty sure he was pouting, actually, running his hands over his hair that was still damp from the seawater and sweat. She wasn't sure if he was attempting to commiserate for the sake of conversation or if he really just wanted to voice his complaints when he caught her gaze studying him and spoke up a moment later.

"My hair's a mess."

"Yeah," Jessi agreed.

It was hard to judge anything behind his sunglasses, but he glanced her up and down with a critical air. "So's yours."

"Yeah."

"How can you stand it?"

She couldn't, not really, but she shrugged. "More important things to worry about."

He made a noise that said very well how much he disagreed. "Looks are important. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise." It seemed as though he thought he was genuinely offering her sage advice.

"You would think that, yeah," Jessi said. It scanned with everything else she'd seen of him thus far.

He missed the point entirely, though Jessi wasn't sure if he was truly that airheaded or if he was choosing to take it as a compliment for the sake of flattering himself. "Of course I would. It takes work to keep yourself looking presentable, and you know what? People notice. They care that you care."

"Listen, I'm not really looking for beauty advice right now," Jessi said honestly.

He gave her that look again, the one she felt like she could see even with the shades on. "Your attitude is half the problem." At her silence, he continued. "I'm just being truthful for your own good. You won't win anybody over if you're going to be like that."

Whatever. Jessi tuned him out. She was looking for powerful people, people who would help her regardless of whether she was nice or not. She didn't need to know how to be charming or diplomatic or anything. She was just a temporary recruiter. What did Blaine know? Nothing she needed to learn, that was for sure. And it wasn't as though any of it mattered in the long-run. She was doing fine back home, too, as far as people were concerned. She had a friend. You only ever actually needed one to get by.

It didn't matter. He was just trying to get on her nerves, it was obvious. Even if John couldn't see how much of a problem Blaine was, Jessi was well aware of it. And honestly, she was sick of everyone having something to say. Something they felt she needed to know or something they wanted her to do. She had bigger goals in mind and it didn't involve any of them, not really.

She stewed for a while in quiet annoyance. At length, Ray broke away from her and John's game of favorites (it became clear they'd run out of topics when Ray finally asked for 'favorite word that starts with the letter E', which was elephant and encyclopedia respectively) and took the lead, which she was thrilled about. They continued on after her for a short while before she stopped abruptly.

"Okay," she told them, holding her hands up and gesturing for them to back up as if dealing with wild animals, "I'm gonna go and grab the dust. You can't look, though!"

"Why?" Jessi asked, arms crossed. "It's not like we're coming back." And hadn't Kat said they were using up the last of it? It was a temporary hiding place, anyway. She didn't see what the big deal was.

"Just do it," Ray sighed.

They complied for the most part because none of them really cared. Jessi shrugged and they all turned away to just stare around the jungle aimlessly while Ray sprinted off between the trees for a while. Apparently she was having fun with all of this, leaving Neverland aside. Maybe she just liked having the authority over the rest of them even if it was temporary and relatively meaningless. It was a miracle she'd been less of a bother about the whole situation on the way over, and she figured they had John to thank for that.

"You did a good job keeping her distracted," Jessi said to him after a few seconds of awkward silence had passed.

John glanced over at her, thoughtful. His arms were crossed behind his back. "Yeah?"

"I've got a younger brother," Jessi said, though it felt a little awkward to be talking about family that wasn't actually around at the moment. She busied herself with kicking lightly at the dirt. "I know it's a pain keeping them busy when they've got constant energy. And when they never shut up."

"Kids are like that," he said. She was sort of thankful he glossed over the subject of Herman. "Get them started and they'll never run out of questions. Least I could do was answer 'em."

"I wouldn't have the patience for it," Jessi admitted frankly.

He smiled. "I guess it's something you grow into."

She had half a mind to ask if he'd ever worked with kids before, or maybe if he just had younger family members, but she figured he wouldn't really know. It was clear from his expression that he was wondering about the same thing anyway, that or he just wasn't sure where the thought had come from to begin with.

"So," Blaine said, either uneasy with the short lapse back into silence or looking to steer them onto a topic he had a say in, "any guesses on what exactly we're getting into as far as this transportation-" he made air quotes around the word- "goes?"

Jessi shook her head. "I'm trying not to think about it." Didn't want to get her hopes up.

"Think it's a car?"

"Maybe." She wouldn't mind that. Very Harry Potter.

"Think it's a nice car?"

"No. I just hope it's more subtle than a pirate ship."

"Oh, but the pirate ship would've been a statement."

"Hard pass."

It was a while longer until Ray all but skipped back out of the trees, a bag clutched tightly in both hands.

"Okay," she said breathlessly. "It's not that far now. This way!"

In what seemed like a fleeting moment of same-mindedness, the other three exchanged glances before setting off after her, albeit at a much slower pace. Ray had to keep stopping entirely, standing a good while ahead of them and making a great show of waiting impatiently for them to catch up before sprinting off again.

They continued on like that for a while. Jessi wasn't bothering to keep track of time all that well, but her legs eventually fell into a pattern so regular that the seemingly endless trek didn't even register anymore. Despite everything, she really couldn't wait to just sit down for a while. Hopefully it _was_ a car. Something that'd keep them out of the way of anyone else but let them kick back for just a minute. Or maybe it was an actual plane. That would be better, more room to avoid talking to the others even if it would be a pain to figure out how to steer it. Assuming they even needed to steer, of course, she wasn't sure how this whole floating vehicle thing worked.

It wasn't obvious from Ray's movement when they were close, because she kept up her excited sprinting the whole way there, but it wasn't hard for them to tell when they got near to it regardless. The thing stood out even between the trees, but Jessi refrained from groaning until they finally got into the sort-of clearing it was situated in. Ray struck a _ta-da_ pose, arms outstretched and beaming.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," said Jessi.

It was a bus.

Not a school bus, thankfully, but one of those tour busses with a tacky pattern painted on the side. Not that they could see much of the pattern given the whole thing was covered in dirt, but it was garish enough as it was, and Jessi rested her face in her palms. Of course it would be a bus. This whole affair was a glorified road trip at this point.

Blaine had already stepped forward to examine it, and John was doing the same, circling around the thing and whistling at the sight of it.

"Uh, wow," he didn't seem to know what to make of it. "It's… certainly something, alright."

Yeah. _Uh, wow_ indeed.

"Working AC?" Blaine asked, lowering his sunglasses to look at Ray. "Radio?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Ray said. "I don't even know if it starts up or not. It doesn't matter 'cause it's gonna be flying."

"I don't know how to drive a bus," Jessi protested. "I doubt John even knows what a bus is-"

He gave her a look as he emerged from the other side of the bus. "I know what a bus is."

"Okay, fine. But do you know how to drive one?"

He had no answer for that.

"Blaine?" Jessi turned to look at him expectantly, and he shook his head, placing his sunglasses back over his eyes.

"Peter Pan flew a pirate ship in the movie and I bet he didn't know how to steer one before," Ray said sternly. "So it's not that hard. It's gotta be the same with a bus. I can fly it!"

Jessi crossed her arms. "I am _not_ stupid enough to let a kid fly a bus, Neverland or elsewhere."

"Why do you hate letting me have fun so much?"

"I want to make it out of here alive."

"John would let me drive a bus," Ray said petulantly.

This seemed to be news to John. "I would not."

"Blaine?" Ray asked hopefully.

Blaine didn't seem to care one way or another. "I mean-"

"Hey," Jessi snapped. "We're not here to talk about who's flying it, we're here to talk about _how_ we're flying it."

Or how they would even get it up in the air. It was pretty wedged into the trees, though clearly many branches had broken when it had presumably fallen into Neverland from the real world. Jessi had no idea if it would just float up or if it would require some maneuvering that she didn't know how to do.

"I dunno, we'll figure it out once it starts floating," Ray said as though that were reasonable. "You guys should probably get in."

"Now hold on a second," John held his hands up, "Jessi may have a point. We don't know first thing about how this is gonna work out. Maybe we should take a minute or two and-"

"Guys!" Ray whined. "I've seen the movie! I _know_ how it works."

"And I've already told you," Jessi said, "this isn't a movie. This stuff is real now, and it's our real lives, and I'm not putting mine on the line to get into that flying death trap until we know how we're gonna get out of here."

"What d'you wanna do?" Ray cried, tossing her arms in the air dramatically. "Google how to drive a bus? We don't even _have_ google! Standing here talking about how it's gonna work doesn't actually mean anything!"

Jessi rubbed at her temples. "Ray-"

"Jessi," Ray returned, "sometimes you just have to _do_ stuff."

"In the real world you can't just _do stuff_."

"You're only saying that 'cause you don't know how to have fun! I bet you never ever try anything new and that's why you think you can just figure it out by talking about it," Ray crossed her arms tightly across her chest, the bag of dust still clutched in her grasp. "If you wanna sit here then you can but _I_ have the dust and I'm leaving."

It took a great amount of willpower to keep Jessi from burying her head in her hands completely and just screaming in wordless rage. The desire was compounded by the fact that John and Blaine now stood silently beside her, neither one making any sort of counterargument.

Jessi turned on them. "This is ridiculous," she said. "You know how ridiculous this is, right?"

"It's a flying bus, of course it's ridiculous," Blaine said.

"But she has a point," John added, and ignored Jessi when she leveled him with a look. He was a turncoat if she'd ever seen one. "It's not like there's much we can do just standin' around down here. Sometimes you've just gotta go and figure it out yourself." As if Ray could ever be more right than she was. Who was he to judge that, anyhow?

And truthfully the thought of just jumping into something made Jessi sick to her stomach. Just hopping in a bus and flying off. What if something went wrong? She had no idea what to do and she doubted Blaine did either. Ray was just a kid and John couldn't even remember if he could drive a car, much less a bus. She wasn't about to sit him behind the wheel and say 'here you go, good luck!' and just hope it worked out. Or maybe she just hated that they wouldn't listen. They weren't even meant to be here, any of them, and they were doing a very poor job of staying out of the way.

"Alright," Jessi shrugged finally, smothering it all down underneath some sort of metaphorical pillow. She didn't have the energy to argue when eventually they'd either have to use it or just get stuck here. "But if we crash it's Ray's fault."

Ray looked a little smug at the victory. "Does that mean I can steer it?"

Jessi shook her head. "I don't care."

Ray took that as a yes, judging by the way she bounced on the balls of her feet a little as the rest of them boarded the bus with various levels of disgruntlement. Blaine immediately made his way towards the back whereas John sat right behind the driver's seat. Jessi realized belatedly that Ray had to remain behind at first if only to sprinkle the whole thing with the dust, so she hesitantly slid into the seat.

She probably wouldn't have to push any buttons or shift gears or anything. That much was comforting. And a wheel was just a wheel, how hard could it be to use it to turn the thing around if need be? But despite telling herself that, her grip on the wheel was white-knuckled.

"Loosen up," John advised, and she had to try very hard to resist the urge to just turn around in her seat and punch him.

"You talking isn't helping," she ground out between tightly gritted teeth. She glanced sideways out the window and saw Ray standing just outside it, giving her a thumbs up. Jessi glared in response, and the kid jumped off of the ground and flew up above them.

It took a second for anything to actually happen.

In fact, Jessi wasn't even aware anything had changed until Blaine made an amused sort of sound from the back, and both Jessi and John turned over their shoulders to watch as the back ceiling started to turn a brilliant, blinding gold.

"Oh, no," Jessi moaned. It was tacky enough before. They were going to be a downright eyesore now. Forget the whole concept of not attracting unwanted attention, that was all but a pipe dream at this point.

The three of them watched in somewhat awed (or very annoyed, in Jessi's case) silence as the gold spread across the ceiling of the bus and down the sides, across the aisle and over all the seats. Jessi felt compelled to remove her hands from the wheel as it changed, and only a second later was she made aware of the lifting sensation she was beginning to feel. Turning to peer over the dashboard and out the windshield, she saw the hood of the bus scrape against the tree trunk it was nestled up against, and she gripped the wheel tightly again. Not a second later, Ray burst in through the half-open door of the bus, pulling it closed the rest of the way (because it certainly wasn't operable through normal means) and tossing their bag (and the empty dust bag) over to John.

"Can I drive it now?" Ray asked.

Jessi didn't respond because she frankly felt like she was going to be sick. Instead she grit her teeth and turned the wheel hard to one side, yanking the front of the bus away from the tree it was rising up against. Ray, who was still standing at that point, nearly fell before scrambling into the seat across the aisle from John.

"One sec," Jessi finally managed to get out, and she yanked the wheel to the right again once, and then twice, and finally the bus turned around the rest of the way with a jolt.

If they had been floating before, it was nothing compared to what it was after they were free from the trees. Ray had her face all but pressed up against the window, and even Jessi was having a hard time keeping her eyes closed despite everything. She couldn't pinpoint why the bus was making her feel so ill. It just wasn't natural.

Experimentally, she turned the wheel slower, and the bus surprisingly turned rather well. She straightened the wheel back out. They were still rising upwards, but it had slowed down, and it seemed like they would level out relatively soon. They were all silent for a couple of seconds, watching the treetops shrink below them.

"Not that hard," Jessi said finally. She wondered how much dust they actually had and if they'd have warning before the thing just gave out and fell. Was that how it worked? She wasn't sure.

But it didn't take long for them to recover from the silent awe (or, this time, horror in Jessi's case) of the whole flying bus thing. Really, it was like a plane. Or at least she kept telling herself that so her palms would stop sweating. Did all magic feel this awful to be around?

"Jessi, move over!" Ray all but ordered, and Jessi couldn't help but comply. She didn't want to be surrounded by the windows in front of her and beside her- she didn't think the motion sickness of it all was helping. She'd figured it out already anyway. Steering really was relatively simple, and Ray knew whatever the pathway was out of Neverland better than she would (something to do with a star). She hurriedly swapped seats with her, pressing her forehead up against the back of the seat in front of hers and taking a second to breathe.

John regarded her with sympathy for a moment or so. Previously he'd been frowning a bit at Ray taking over, but he'd judged it harmless enough afterwards. "You alright?"

"Uh, no," Jessi said. She couldn't entirely pinpoint what was wrong, either. She was still angry and the floating thing made her sick, but the rest was hard to say. Maybe she just didn't like the whole magic shtick that was happening. Could someone be allergic to magic?

She at least had a while to sit there with her eyes closed tightly and breathe, though. Let things try to straighten out in her mind. Not like it was working, but she had a second to try.

It didn't last very long.

"Hey," Ray said after a bit of maneuvering to get the bus in the right position to depart Neverland (it had taken her a solid minute to figure out how to properly operate the steering wheel, which Jessi half-assumed was because she was too excited to just think it over rationally). "There's only one star up there."

"Huh?" Jessi muttered. She couldn't care less.

She glanced over, and John was leaning forward to peer out the windshield. "What do you mean?"

"Neverland's whole thing is the second star to the right and straight on 'til morning," Ray said, and then pointed out through the windshield. "But there's only one big star over there. The other one's gone."

"It's the middle of the day," Jessi said. Or at least the evening, she wasn't sure, but it was still too early for that. There shouldn't have been any stars out, frankly, but she leaned forward to try and see what they were looking at and sure enough, there was a big bright star blinking in the sky. Middle of the day and yet there it was. "There's supposed to be two?"

"Yeah," Ray frowned. "But I think… maybe the other one is the wrong one, anyway, and that's the second star, so we might be okay."

"How do you know?" John asked curiously.

Ray shrugged. "I've seen the movie SO many times. And one of them is kinda smaller and also they're in different places so I'm pretty sure."

"Maybe it's just too early for the other one to be out," Jessi said.

Ray looked very doubtful. "I dunno." Jessi had to admit she was equally uncertain. She did recall Neverland having very strict navigational directions. It seemed like both stars should be there in order to determine which one was the second star on the right.

"That must be it. Stars don't just disappear," John reasoned. "That would be absurd."

"It is Neverland," Jessi said.

"But the stars are totally normal for Neverland. They wouldn't just not be there anymore," Ray said, echoing Jessi's earlier thoughts.

"Look, just head towards it," Blaine said from the back of the bus. He was leaning with his back against the window, legs spread out in front of him on the seat. "If it's the right way then we're good. If it's not then... whatever," he waved a hand vaguely.

They collectively frowned at that, but he was more or less right. Well, save for the 'then whatever' part. At least they would know one way or another if they kept going in that direction.

"Straight on 'til morning, then," John said, and he and Jessi leaned back in their seats. "We've got a while. You should probably get some sleep," he advised, and it took Jessi a minute to realize he was talking to her.

Jessi shrugged, but he wasn't exactly wrong this time around. Even if she didn't want to listen to him or anybody else at the moment. It took a lot of energy to keep up her petty anger when she felt so sick and tired of it all. Sleep didn't seem like a bad idea at the moment and she didn't want to stay awake until morning. Assuming that was literal, of course, she had no idea and Ray wasn't about to correct them even if it was right.

"Let me know if something goes wrong," she said, but quietly so that Ray wouldn't yell about it. "Or if Ray wants to switch drivers."

"I'll trade off if she gets tired. If she can steer this thing then I certainly can. We can all take shifts." He looked towards the back of the bus briefly. "Blaine included."

"Yeah, alright." Jessi had a hard time seeing any sort of problem with that course of action.

Though she wasn't sure at first how much sleep she would be able to get on a bus, the seats were fairly comfortable once she'd curled up into a tight enough position and her body had quite clearly decided that it had been through enough that day, thank you very much.

And then she dreamt, which was strange.

Well. Not that strange. She had dreams on occasion, same as just about everyone else, but she felt weirdly lucid in this dream- or at least she thought she did. She noticed fairly quickly that she didn't have any sort of body, or even any real presence. There was simply a black void all around her, and for a brief moment she thought that she was still awake and her eyes were just unable to open. But the more she thought of it the more she knew it wasn't true. She was aware that she was asleep. It felt almost as though she could just reach out and wake herself up, if she really tried, but she didn't want to. It was only a dream. Even if the nothingness and her lack of self was strange, she felt in control of the situation somehow. She could leave at any time. And she wanted to sleep while she had the chance.

She didn't know how long she stayed like that or how long her body was actually asleep before she realized that she wasn't alone.

Jessi noticed it first on her left. Or her relative left, because she had no actual sense of direction nor sense of place, but it was distinctly located _elsewhere_. Not near her. It was impossible to maneuver herself sideways, but she knew it was around.

'It' being the light, of course.

It was faint and small, like a far off star or a dying ember. She saw it only on occasion as it swooped in and out of the space she was in, and then finally she was able to train her gaze (whatever version of a gaze she had in whatever this dream was) on it and watch it.

It didn't seem to be aware that she was there. Or maybe it just didn't know where it was at all. It was hard to define, but the light had a clear presence about it even though it seemed so far away.

And then suddenly it fixated on her.

She could feel that more clearly than anything else. It was as though a pair of eyes had suddenly turned right towards her, but the light was still the same, far off and dim. She just knew it had stilled and- and the more she looked at it the closer it grew. Very slowly. It took a long while before she even noticed it was moving at all.

Unease began to build in the back of her mind. She suddenly felt incredibly unsafe there, like this was something outside of her control and now that it had noticed her there wasn't anywhere to go. It was just an empty void, it was just a dream, she didn't have any reason to be afraid of it but the wariness wouldn't leave her.

The light grew closer.

But that was all it was, just a dream. Jessi was still aware of it, and in another rush of lucidity she reached out and shook herself awake somehow, jolting up from her curled up position, breathing hard.

It was light outside. The very pale light of an early not-quite sunrise. Blaine was driving.

"What's up with you," he asked. "Asthma?"

Jessi clutched at her chest, trying to calm her pounding heart. She didn't know why the panic had followed her here. It was just a dream, and it had only been a silly light. She kept repeating it. "No," she said. "I'm good." She leaned up against the window, glancing down below them. They were sailing over land, but it wasn't the island. Her mind reached for anything else to talk about, think about. "We made it out of Neverland?"

"Yeah, I guess Ray went to sleep after that part," Blaine said. "I woke up and then John made me take over." He reached across the dashboard and pushed a few buttons, turned a few knobs. "No AC," he said. "And no radio."

Jessi figured it was pointless asking where specifically they were, or even humoring his woes. As it was, she was busy surveying the ground below them.

Something was still prickling at the back of her mind. She couldn't tell what it was.

Slowly, she got to her feet and made her way down the aisle, stopping to peer out each window as she did as though the sky were going to change between one window and the next. She stepped over Ray, who was sprawled out like a starfish across the floor (she probably fell out of a seat and just didn't wake up). John was still near the front of the bus, slumped over in his seat. The sky outside was clear and just beginning to lighten into day.

The sky was nearly empty, actually. And then for just a moment it suddenly wasn't.

Jessi first spotted it near the back window. It was gone before she could properly see what it was save for the quickest flash of movement.

"Did you see that?" Jessi asked. Blaine didn't hear her. She was too far back.

She crossed the aisle and slid more properly into the seat, pressing her face up against the glass and squinting. There weren't many clouds, which she was thankful for. But maybe it had just been a bird or a plane, something relatively far off that they wouldn't actually have to worry about.

Then it passed by again. Jessi caught a better glimpse of it this time.

It was a bird- a raven, or something, maybe it was a crow but she could never tell the difference because she only saw them in shows and stuff or just didn't pay them mind when they were actually out and about. But even from a distance away from the bus it looked large- far larger than normal.

It was looking right at her. Then it was gone.

"Okay," Jessi said, standing back up and hurrying towards the front. "That was a little weird." She raised her voice up from a mutter once she got close enough to Blaine. "Does this thing go any faster?"

"What?" Blaine looked at her critically. "It's operating on fairydust, what do you think?"

"There's this huge bird out there," Jessi said, and then realized how irrational that must sound. "It's like-"

There was a sudden loud _thud_ from the side of the bus. The entire vehicle shook.

Jessi grabbed onto the back of Blaine's seat to remain upright, whipping her head around to peer out the back windows. She spotted a shape dive down again, and then before she could process what was going on there was a thud from the other side of the bus.

Blaine let go of the wheel like his hands had been burned. "What the-"

"Give me that," Jessi slid into his seat as he quickly backed away, her heart pounding. She jerked the wheel hard to the right, the same way she'd done when they were trying to get off the ground, and then turned it back to the left. The bus maneuvered quickly, same as before, but it wasn't quick enough. And what else could she do, really? There was no way to make it go up or down that she knew of.

From the aisle, she heard Ray mutter something that was probably meant to be "what's going on?" but her words were slurred together and incoherent. John was slightly more alert, and he leaned over the seat again.

"What're you doing?" He demanded, and then they all lurched forwards when something slammed into the back of the bus.

"I don't know!" Jessi cried. "There's this crazy huge bird that's just slamming into the bus, I have no idea what it wants with us." She wasn't sure that it was real, actually. She felt kind of silly when she stopped to think about it. It was just a bird, a really big one but maybe that wasn't so unusual because they were still technically in Disney. Things were weird, even if they weren't in Neverland anymore. And yet, though she didn't know why, she felt very clearly that it was a presence they wanted nothing to do with. It had spotted Jessi specifically. It was after her.

"A bird?" John echoed in disbelief.

Another thud.

"A massive one," Jessi said. "Someone open a window and yell at it."

"Yell at it?" John's voice was slightly more hysterical this time around. His increasing panic didn't really help.

"I don't have any other ideas!"

"Oh, man," Blaine said suddenly, surprisingly serious, and Jessi turned sharply to look at him, following his line of sight.

She spotted it in the back of the bus first, right where the bird had last made impact. While the rest of the ceiling and the aisles and the seats were still the same brilliant gold, there was a large spot of… well, normal bus color. It was slowly inking out of the impact spot, spreading across the rest of it. It was losing its shine. It took Jessi a solid couple of seconds to realize what that meant.

Jessi looked around towards either side where the bird had hit them before. Sure enough, the gold was fading from that section too. Her stomach rose into her throat for a wide variety of reasons.

Admittedly, Jessi wasn't proud of the string of curses that left her mouth at the realization.

"We're going to fall," she said, and Blaine seemed to have reached that realization at the same time as her because he lowered himself more fully into a seat, clutching the one in front of him with both hands. "We're going to crash," she said louder, and John grabbed an only slightly awake Ray by the arm and maneuvered her into one of the seats.

"How is that even possible?" John asked, eyes fixated out the window. "It's just a bird!"

Jessi peered through the windshield. They weren't that far off the ground, fortunately, and their descent was slow because the fairydust wasn't ebbing away remarkably quickly, but then the bird slammed into them again and it jolted the bus downwards sharply.

"A bird?" Ray asked, suddenly much more invested in the situation. Jessi was getting sick of hearing about it already, or she felt that she would be if her mind wasn't screaming at her in fifty different levels of panic. "Did we hit one earlier? And nobody woke me up to see it?"

"I sure didn't hit any birds when I was driving," John looked at Blaine, who shook his head. "Guess it's not after revenge." If he was trying to make a joke, it wasn't very funny.

"I have no idea where it came from," Jessi said. Another _thud_. "Or why it's so pissed off. Look at that thing," she pointed as it swooped in front of the windshield, coming around for another attack, "it's huge!"

They didn't get the opportunity to discuss it much more than that. They lurched forwards again as the bird slammed into the back of the bus once, twice, three times, and out of the corner of her eye Jessi saw the gold ebbing away from the aisle, the dim colors of the original bus fading back into view. She didn't get the chance to tell the others to hold on tightly as the bus tilted downwards, and she was only vaguely aware of her grip on the steering wheel slipping as they tilted towards the earth.

Jessi thought, irrationally, that she didn't get enough sleep for this, and then she felt herself rising briefly out of her seat.

That was about the last thing she was capable of recognizing before her vision went black.

* * *

AN: The beginning of this chapter gave me trouble. Two or more months worth of it. Sorry. If the editing is sloppy on this chapter, I apologize. It was late at night when I edited and it's still late at night and yet here I am publishing!

A few conversations between the party, getting to know each other more, and I wanted to use this chapter to make it clear that Jessi is an unreliable narrator. She's not a great person, and her view of the others is inaccurate and unfair at times. If you find yourself agreeing with some of the others more than her most of the time... well, I certainly wouldn't argue with you.

It's also important to keep in mind that while John may not know much regarding his personal affairs, he is still very opinionated. Not that his opinions are rational in some cases, but he sure does have a lot of them.

Review responses (thank you all for reviewing!) :

JOHNHAMMOND1993: Maybe! I'm trying not to give out spoilers regarding OC roles (and, well, most other things) in the actual story itself, so for now you'll have to wait and see when it will appear. Alternatively, if you'd like to PM me we can hash out more details so you have a bit more say over the role of your suggestion. Up to you! I largely communicate with people who've submitted OCs through PMs, because working out details together makes things fit together neatly.

Chirithy564: I also love Blaine, he's a good foil to the rest of them. The whole group ended up complementing each other nicely, which was a very pleasant surprise given they're all from different creators, more or less! I do know who is joining the crew next, but it won't be for a while. You can get used to this group sticking around for the next few chapters.

Demi Brackensick: The next world will be very apparent in the next chapter! Originally they were going to land there at the end of this one, but it ended up carrying on long enough without that, haha. The next installment should be out relatively quick as a result, because I cut out a good portion of this one and just moved it over to that one.


	9. The Sage

Chapter Nine - The Sage

"Information learned is more valuable than information given."

- _Assassin's Creed_

* * *

Jessi came to fairly quickly. Of course, she only knew she hadn't been out for very long because the sun was still more or less overhead. And she wasn't in the bus anymore, she could tell that much immediately, so someone must have dragged her out.

...Oh. Right. The bus. They had crashed that.

She sat bolt upright and immediately regretted it, leaning forward to let her head drop into her palms and squeezing her temples tightly against the immediate throbbing in her head. Slightly panicked at the realization that she was injured, she checked over her arms and ran her hands down her face but felt no blood.

She was, frankly, very impressed that she wasn't dead yet. She'd lost track of how many falls she'd taken since this whole thing had begun.

Beyond that, she had no idea where the bus was or what state it was in. She had half a mind to raise her head again to search for it, forget about the headache, but she heard hurried footsteps approaching her and a second later she rolled her gaze upwards as much as she could manage to eye John as he knelt down near her in the mud.

Mud? Now that she thought about it, she could feel it seeping through her jeans. It was probably in her hair, too, which was going to be a pain to wash out assuming she ever got the opportunity. It was hard to focus at all on the environment around her but the air was humid and she knew they were surrounded by trees. Further concentration and she could pick out the sound of water near them. A swamp?

"Lemme check your eyes," John said with no other greeting, attempting to catch her gaze though Jessi kept jerking her chin down stubbornly. She'd handle it, thanks. But her mouth wouldn't cooperate enough to produce anything more than a grumble. "You're not doing a real great job of convincing me you don't have a concussion."

She wasn't convinced she didn't have a concussion either. "'S'alright," she managed finally, and tried to push herself up to her feet.

John's hands on her shoulders gently pushed her back down. "What're you trying to do? We don't have anywhere to be."

"Bus," Jessi said, and then closed her eyes tightly and tried to remember how sentence structure worked. Her head was pounding so loudly she thought John could probably hear it, and after just a couple words her tone edged well into frustrated territory. "The bus. We have to- we have to fix the bus."

"Uh," John sat back on his heels a little, weighing her words with a tilt of his head, and she sort of appreciated the fact that he did actually seem to be taking her priorities into consideration even though she was sure she was operating at negative-five processing power at the moment. "I agree," he finally said, albeit very slowly, "but that's kinda low on our priority list at the moment. No mechanics in a swamp," he gestured pointedly with an arm.

Jessi was only slightly more aware of her surroundings once she looked around. They were deep in the swamp, from the look of things, and aside from the slight clearing they were in at the moment it was rather dark elsewhere, blanketed in a canopy of trees and moss. The water around them was disgusting and it was muddy everywhere. She didn't want to think about the bugs and things that probably surrounded her. She didn't even know what lived in a swamp- weren't there gators?

"Figures," Jessi said because it was the first thing on her mind. She let her head fall back a little now that she'd had a moment to come back to full consciousness, and she grudgingly let John examine her pupils. "I never land anywhere nice."

"How much do you remember?" John asked. He was evidently satisfied that she didn't appear immediately concussed, because he sat back again after just a couple of seconds.

"I'm not sure you're the best person to be asking that," Jessi said.

He gave her a look. She sighed.

"Are you asking, like, in general or just about the crash?"

"I meant about the crash, but in retrospect maybe we should be concerned about the long-term stuff, too."

"Yeah, this is like the fifth time this happened," Jessi admitted. "I don't know. I feel like I remember the long-term stuff. Was the bird real?"

"Was it real?" John raised his eyebrows. "Um, yes. That was real."

"I wasn't totally sure I didn't hallucinate that."

He looked slightly more concerned now. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine," Jessi insisted. "Just a little out of it. Where'd it go?"

"Where'd what go?"

"The _bird_."

"Oh. That's a very good question," he admitted. "I guess it must've left after we fell because nobody's seen any sign of it. Granted, we didn't crash all that long ago… maybe it just wasn't interested in sharing the skies with us."

"Didn't even get any evidence," Jessi remarked distantly. "Nobody's going to believe us if we tell them our bus got totaled by a bird the size of a car."

Which really was the least of their concerns. No mechanic could actually get a bus that old operational again, and they had no means through which to get it in the air. They were well and truly stuck.

At that point, perhaps in a subconsciously purposeful attempt to make the situation just slightly more difficult to process, Ray popped out and over a fallen log somewhere to their left and splashed over through the bog, hands clasped tightly together. "Look at this frog I caught!"

She thrust her hands out towards them and opened her palms, which caused John to flinch back quite severely. Jessi leaned forward a bit, and fortunately the large frog situated in Ray's hands didn't seem inclined to jump onto anyone. It just sat there blinking at her with its large eyes. It was quite ugly, but otherwise unremarkable for a frog. Jessi elected to ignore it.

"Ray, where's the bus?" Jessi asked.

Ray seemed only slightly put out by the lack of enthusiasm in response to her frog. "Over there somewhere," she pointed off towards Jessi's other side. "We had to drag you into the mud because everything else is water and John said you'd drown. And then he said to wait for you to wake up so I went and explored a little bit. It's crazy that the bus didn't explode or anything when we hit the ground but I guess maybe we weren't falling that fast? It still wasn't very fun, but-"

"Wh- how did I even… why was I out?" Jessi furrowed her brow. "And for how long?"

"Just a few minutes," John said. "Maybe five at most. Hit your head on the dashboard pretty hard, we all heard it."

"And I guess sleeping in the mud just doesn't work out that great," Ray said. "Since it woke you up and all."

It admittedly took Jessi a second to run through the rest of her mental checklist and figure out what else was missing. John had the bag slung over his shoulder, so… "Blaine?"

"In the bus," John answered, and then elaborated. "Mosquitos. And leeches, poor guy."

"Can I keep him?" Ray asked.

"Blaine?" Jessi asked. "No, he said he was leaving after our first stop."

Ray gave her a sour look and apparently thought she was joking. Jessi only then realized that she was asking about the frog. Her mind was a few seconds behind, she guessed.

"No," Ray said, very slowly and with much exasperation, " _him_." She held her frog out again. "Kermit."

"We can't take care of a frog on a bus," John said reasonably.

"We'll probably run into the real Kermit at some point," Jessi said, slightly less reasonably, "and then one of them would have to change names."

"Kermit Junior," Ray said. "I can catch bugs here and we can keep them in the bag to feed him."

"Uh, no," said Jessi, who didn't want bugs in the bag at all.

"Absolutely not," said John with far more vehemence. It was around then that Jessi realized she should absolutely not be focusing on this argument of all things.

"Hey, are you sure I don't have a concussion?" Jessi glanced at John. "Because now that I'm thinking about it all of it makes no sense. Like, starting from the flying bus all the way up to literally right now. I have no idea what's going on anymore."

He looked slightly sheepish. "Admittedly I don't have much experience with, uh, medical matters," he began, "but I'm pretty sure. Just try not to move around too much. And don't sleep?" He glanced at Ray as if she would know. "That's part of concussions, isn't it?"

She couldn't sleep even if she wanted to. If the constant crashing and falling didn't kill her her stress levels would, and she had an itching feeling in the back of her mind that prompted her to vaguely recall the dream she'd had while asleep on the bus. She tried to ignore it.

"Ray, do you know where we are? Or what movie we're in?"

"The Muppet Movie," said Ray.

"Really?"

Ray shrugged. "I dunno, I just want it to be true since you said we could meet Kermit. Kermit Junior wants to meet his namesake." She held the frog out again.

"Put that thing back where it came from, Ray," John said, and he stood up to help Jessi onto her feet. She wobbled a bit unsteadily, feet sliding in the slick mud, and made a face. Standing didn't help her headache much, either, but there was little way to fix that. She didn't want to sit back down in the mud.

"He's not a thing," Ray insisted, "he's my pet and I like him. And he has a name!"

"How about you find a different pet?" John suggested. "Something that doesn't eat live prey?"

" _That's_ what this is about? You're just grossed out by him?" Ray scoffed. "We can put him on a spiders-only diet. We both agreed we don't like spiders."

"But that's just unfair to the spiders. They haven't done anything to deserve that."

Ray stared at him for a second before looking to Jessi. "Will you tell John he's being super boring right now?"

"Tell him yourself," Jessi said.

"Kermit Junior and I aren't talking to him right now."

"Look," Jessi sighed. "We don't have time for this. First of all, we are not keeping _any_ pet because we're stuck on a bus and there's nowhere for them to go. And no food for them to eat," she added when Ray opened her mouth to defend the idea of free-range frogs or something. "Second of all, we have way more important things to focus on right now. Like the fact that we don't even have a working bus anymore. So," she gestured pointedly with her hands in the supposed direction of the bus.

"We don't really have a lot of options," John said, following her hands to gaze thoughtfully in that direction. "Outside of walking until we find a town. We can't split up, that's for sure."

"Right," Jessi agreed, running a hand over her hair before pulling it away and making a face. It felt disgusting.

Any further attempts at discussing their options was cut off by a piercing whistle from the direction of the bus. They paused, and then it sounded again, this time accompanied by Blaine's voice. "Come see this!"

Ray ran off immediately, and after a second Jessi followed close behind. It wasn't much of a walk through the trees until they came upon the bus- and they really hadn't been joking, Jessi had been resting on the only somewhat-dry patch in the immediate area. Everything else was water, and when they finally reached the bus the stuff was almost up to her knees. She didn't want to think about what might be swimming in it.

Blaine was halfway up the bus, his feet positioned on the edge of an open window and his arms draped across the roof. He turned to glance down at them, jerking his head in Ray's direction in a silent indication for her to get up on the roof.

"I can see some kind of building not that far away," he said. "You'll have to get all the way up on the roof and into a tree to see over the tops of the others, though." He lowered himself to a crouch so he could free one arm and point in the direction he was indicating. Jessi was slightly amazed and also horrified at the realization that Blaine was far more on top of the situation than she was at the moment.

"Okay!" Ray was all too eager to comply, and after just a half second of contemplation she opened her hands and let Kermit Junior jump free. Blaine took a second to climb down, most of which was spent making a series of faces over the prospect of ending up in the swamp water, but finally he hopped off of the window and Ray easily scaled the bus before running towards the nearby tree branches.

"Why were you even up there to begin with?" Jessi, who had just gotten her breath back from running through the water to get to the bus, asked.

He gave her a sideways look. "I mean, I'm not exactly keen on staying in a swamp forever. Not like it was for fun."

She shrugged. "You didn't happen to see any sign of that bird, did you?"

He shook his head. "Isn't that weird? Did you see the size of that thing? It would take a _lot_ of work to make something that big disappear."

"But it did disappear, right? John said he didn't see where it went either."

"I guess after you knocked out it thought 'hey, looks like my job's done'." Blaine shrugged. "I don't know. It's a bird. I'm not going to tell you it turned invisible but it definitely left after that."

She looked at him for a second longer before turning back to watch Ray scale the tree branches, heading for the very top. After a while she figured there was really no one else to tell it to, and sighed. "Can I say something that might sound kind of weird?"

He arched his eyebrows. "Do tell."

"I had this dream before the bird showed up. Well. The dream wasn't _about_ a bird or anything, but I definitely felt like someone was watching me. And then when I woke up…"

"We got knocked out of the sky by Birdzilla?"

"Yeah. And I was wondering… maybe they're connected?" She paused. "I don't know. That sounds stupid. I think I'm paranoid."

"I also think you're paranoid," Blaine said helpfully, "but I know this guy who once dated a mystic. You know, one of those tarot card and ouija board types. Maybe we could get you to one of those? Get your palm read. Tea leaves checked."

"I can't even tell if you're being serious right now," Jessi said.

"My horoscope is always _very_ telling," he said matter-of-factly. "Dreams are sort of the same thing, aren't they?"

"I don't know. I don't really know that much about dreams. They're usually nonsense, though."

"You're the one that brought it up, not me," Blaine said.

Jessi thought that maybe she just needed her own idea echoed back to her to realize how stupid it sounded. But she turned away from him to look back to the bus as Ray finally climbed back down from the tree, plopping down to sit on the roof of the bus with her legs dangling over the side. Her expression was so grave that it was almost comical, given her attitude towards the rest of the trip thus far, but Jessi raised an eyebrow anyway.

"What's up?"

"There's a boat," she said, and from her tone she acted like everything should be apparent just from that bit of information, "in a tree. A really big boat in a really big tree."

This felt like a very serious team meeting for some reason, and Jessi had no idea why. "You're joking."

"No, I'm not joking!" Her voice was just as serious- nearly hysterical, if Ray ever approached such a thing- and Jessi glanced over her shoulder to exchange a look with John. He shrugged, and Ray groaned, running her hands over her face. "This is Princess and the Frog. I _hate_ that movie."

"Oh? I think I might've caught that in theaters," Jessi said. "It's that one with the new princess- well, not that new anymore, I guess. Tiana, right?" But she couldn't remember much else. They were turned into frogs, it did definitely take place in a swamp, and New Orleans wasn't too far away which was good news at the moment. "What's so bad about it?"

"You know the villain?"

"Not really," Jessi said. Some guy in a top hat.

Ray thought on that for a moment before admitting, "well, he doesn't matter that much. But he has these creepy shadow ghost things that work for him-" she took another moment to look over her shoulder, something Jessi realized she'd been doing for the last minute or so, "-we really need to leave." She punctuated every word very firmly. "I don't want to be here."

"Well, hey," Jessi began, "he was defeated at the end of the movie." She thought. It was a Disney movie, so probably. "So those definitely aren't around anymore."

"You don't know that!"

"Either way, we don't have anywhere else we can run off to. But now that we know what movie we're in, we can better deal with whatever pops up. Right?"

Ray sullenly swung herself down from the roof. "I... guess you're right."

"Yeah?"

"No. I'm out," Ray immediately made a beeline for the bus doors as soon as her feet hit the ground.

"Now, hold on just a minute," John caught her by the back of her hoodie and she stopped in her tracks with a groan.

"I'm staying here," Ray said, "in the bus. With the doors locked."

"But there's more light over there," Jessi gestured towards the direction of the houseboat. "Isn't that safer?"

"But we have to walk through the whole swamp to get there," Ray whined.

"It isn't that far."

"There's safety in numbers," John added. "Do you know who lives up there, Ray?"

Ray took a while to think of the answer. Jessi figured that she likely hadn't seen the movie much outside of the initial viewing if she really was that freaked out by whatever the shadow things were. "The old lady. I can't really remember her name..." she trailed off, scrunching up her face for a second in thought. "Mama Odie?"

"And she's… helpful?" John wagered a guess.

"She's a good guy, yeah," Ray sighed. She knew where this line of thinking was leading.

"Then we stand a better chance goin' out there than we do waiting around here."

Ray nodded petulantly.

"Hey," John bent slightly so they were more at eye level. "It'll be fine. C'mon."

Jessi didn't see how he could possibly know that it would be fine, but Ray evidently saw the logic in their argument because she didn't fight anymore, just wrapped her arms tighter around herself. Though she tried to keep up a scowl, it was uneasy, and her worry made Jessi slightly less at ease too.

"Are we done here?" Blaine asked from a few feet behind them. "Because if it's shadows we're worried about, we're going to have a much bigger problem once the sun sets."

"Or less of a problem," John said, "assuming they need sunlight to form proper shadows."

"Look, shadows aside, we can't keep standing around here forever." Jessi said. "Let's go."

They checked the interior of the bus to make sure they had all their belongings, which really just consisted of the bag, and then set off. They sloshed their way through the water in awkward silence.

"I really miss Kermit Junior," Ray sighed. "He would've made this more interesting. And less scary."

"You're the one who released him," Jessi pointed out.

"You know what people say," Ray said dramatically, clearly feeling sullen due to the circumstances, "if you love something, let it go."

"That's... weirdly deep of you."

She nodded solemnly. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

Jessi looked at her. "Where'd you hear that one?"

"Robin Hood."

"Right." Of course.

"Play I spy," Blaine suggested from the back of the group, where he was keeping pace with John. "Or some variation of it. I've got a few. Like 'is that a log or an alligator?' Or 'is that a regular shadow or'-"

"Not helping," Jessi said.

"It's a genuine suggestion," Blaine said. "If you aren't keeping an eye open for these things you won't know when to get out of the way."

"Ray knows karate," Jessi said in a somewhat stilted attempt to be slightly supportive, considering Ray had gone back to compulsively checking over her shoulder now that Blaine had brought the topic back up. She aimed for sounding very matter-of-factly confident. "So I think we'll be good."

"You can't fight a shadow," Ray told her. "They're not _solid_."

Now Jessi was just confused. "Then how can they hurt us?"

"They just can. But we can't hurt them."

"Alright. So… running, not fighting," Jessi said.

"More like swimming," Blaine shuddered. He was right, the water level hadn't dropped any since they began their trek. "This is disgusting."

Jessi completely agreed. But disgusting or not, they mercifully didn't encounter much of anything on their way through the swamp, save for a few more frogs. Though it had only been the afternoon when they began, the progress was slow due to the water, and it was nearly sunset when they reached the base of the large tree.

"Those steps do _not_ look safe," Jessi said as she eyed the staircase winding its way around the wide trunk. "There's no railing." She wasn't scared of heights by any means, but traversing a narrow staircase that high up without any sort of safety measure didn't strike her fancy. "We should be careful."

But Ray was already taking them two at a time, all but sprinting up towards the brightly lit boat.

"...Or we could just. Not," Jessi said.

"It's not that high up," John gestured for Blaine to go ahead of him.

"It kind of is."

"And I've been on much narrower ledges than this."

"Oh, have you?" Jessi raised an eyebrow, taking up the rear of the group.

He paused for a while, looking at her over his shoulder like he had no idea what she was talking about, and then retraced his steps. "Well, some part of me evidently thinks so."

"You really give us the most abstract things to work with," Jessi told him. "It's not really helpful."

"It isn't purposeful."

"I know, but still."

When they reached the top, they found Ray waiting for them (which was strangely considerate of her) in front of the… well, it wasn't quite a door, given the whole boat had a bunch of holes in it. It was just a wide-open gap in the wooden hull of the thing. Jessi tentatively peered around Ray and into the interior, but didn't see anyone.

"Can we just… walk in?" she asked. She felt compelled to whisper for some reason.

Ray shrugged and made an 'I dunno' sort of noise.

"Of course we can," Blaine shouldered past her. "We're great company." She got the distinct impression he was talking about himself. Either way, he walked right in, rapping a fist against the side of the makeshift doorway as he did so and calling, "hello?"

"Why do I bother trying to plan ahead at all with you people," Jessi muttered, but she followed in after him regardless with a shake of her head. "She's not gonna sing a musical number at us, is she?"

"I think that's a movie thing," Ray said quietly, "and not a real life thing. Maybe they don't actually do that."

Jessi had her fingers crossed. Her head couldn't take any sort of musical number at the moment.

The place certainly didn't look abandoned, given all the light, and occasionally up in the rafters Jessi spotted pink birds peering down at them with what looked like interest. But there wasn't anyone in their immediate line of sight for a while.

"Oh," Ray said suddenly, and Jessi turned to look at what she was pointing at.

Mama Odie (assuming Ray had her name correct) was sprawled out in a chair, unmoving.

Ray stared for a second before turning very gravely towards the rest of them. "I think she's dead."

Mama Odie very clearly wasn't dead. She was snoring quite loudly. But Jessi gave Ray a sour look for the comment regardless, and carefully approached the ancient woman in the chair.

"...Should I wake her up?" Jessi asked uncertainty.

"Please," Blaine said. "At this rate we'll never leave."

"And if you don't then she'll never wake up," Ray said solemnly. "Old people sleep forever."

Jessi rolled her eyes. But it was uncomfortable standing around while she just slept right there, so she reached out a hand to gingerly touch her elbow.

Mama Odie shot straight up before Jessi's hand even made contact, yelling. "JUJU! Why didn't you tell me we had guests!"

Jessi jumped backwards with a startled yelp, and then shouted again as she nearly tripped over a very large green snake that had slithered out of nowhere to coil up the chair and across Mama Odie's shoulders.

"Well, we did knock," Blaine said.

"Sort of," John added.

Upon hearing his voice, Mama Odie turned towards him, though her glasses covered her sightless eyes, and scowled. "Thought you said you was gonna stop bothering me after last time!"

John tilted his head. "I'm sorry?"

"You should be! Didn't even tell me you was bringing folks here," she sniffed, and took a while to push herself out of her chair and onto her feet. "Lemme see here."

Jessi watched with mild fascination as she made her way towards them, her snake serving as a makeshift walking stick (she was pretty sure snakes weren't supposed to do that normally, but she wasn't about to get started on that topic).

"I've been waiting on you," she said. "You're late."

"How'd you know we were coming?" Jessi asked.

"Everybody in the bayou heard you crash down," she said, and Jessi got the feeling she wasn't being entirely forthcoming. "Not sure why you're wasting so much time, though. We've gotta get you on your way."

She lightly whacked the snake against their shins as she passed by them. _Tap_. "Rayleigh." _Whack_. "Blaine."

She stopped in front of Jessi, then reached up with alarming speed and grabbed hold of the key around her neck, pulling it down to her level. Jessi choked slightly, bending over to avoid being strangled. After just a second, Mama Odie was apparently satisfied and released it. "Jessi."

"How do you know?" Jessi asked again, straightening back up and rubbing at her neck. She was asking about all of them, really.

"Them?" she waved a hand back towards Blaine and Ray. "'Course I know them!" Ray and Blaine exchanged glances- Ray's far more impressed than Blaine's, who was probably used to being recognized. "And you, you've got your key."

"My- this isn't mine," Jessi said, and took the opportunity to present the topic of ditching said key. "And since we're here I was actually wondering-"

"Not yours?" Mama Odie echoed, and she grabbed it again and tugged on the string a little. Jessi had to bend over again. "What're you wearing if for, then?"

"I… I don't know. I just found it."

"Then _just_ get rid of it," Mama Odie told her frankly, and she pulled the key off from around Jessi's neck and placed it in her open palm. She jerked her head towards the window. "Go on!"

Jessi hesitated. "But it's important," she said. "I need to find someone else who can use it. I don't know if you know, but-"

"Of course I know! If it's that important it'll find somebody else. Things like that don't get found. They find _you_."

"I… I don't really want to risk it." She didn't want it, of course, but she'd come all the way out here. She couldn't throw away the one way to help save things. "Look, I need your help. Back at the-"

"Go on," Mama Odie jerked her head towards the window impatiently. Her tone made it clear she wasn't asking Jessi to continue their conversation.

Jessi looked at the key in her palm, and then stepped towards the window with a sigh. She had to know what she was doing, right? She wouldn't just let Jessi throw it away if she knew why it was important. Jessi wound her arm back and threw the key as far as she could manage.

She waited until she heard the splash of it hitting water, and turned away from the window. Not even half a second later, a glimmer of light caught her eye.

She glanced down. The key was back around her neck.

"It's yours, alright," Mama Odie said decisively.

Jessi didn't ask how she knew it had returned. "Maybe it chose wrong."

"Who knows?" she didn't elaborate any further, and moved forwards a step. John was a few paces back, looking sort of uneasy with the snake that close to him. She stopped and held out her hand, palm up. "And where'd you run off to? C'mere."

"Right here, ma'am." John cautiously leaned forward and lightly touched her hand with his. She slapped it away with quite some force. "Ow!"

Mama Odie lunged forwards, practically grabbing him by the ears and yanking him down to her level. She ran a hand through his curls and over his face, tugging at his cheeks. She released him a second later and gave a short, barking laugh.

"Boy, what'd you do to yourself this time?"

John was rubbing crossly at his face. "Beg pardon?"

"Blaine, what's his name?"

Blaine shrugged, just as lost as everyone else. "I think we're just calling him John Doe?" He looked at Jessi for confirmation, and she nodded.

"He doesn't really remember that much," Jessi said, curious. "Do you know him?"

"Sure do."

"Then you can... tell me?" John asked. "About me? I mean, my memories."

"I can."

They all waited for several awkward seconds.

"... _Will_ you tell him anything?" Jessi asked finally.

Mama Odie laughed again. "Nope!"

"Why not?" John very nearly demanded, and then he backtracked a bit. "I- please. This is important to me."

"I know," she replied. "Which is why you've got to figure it out yourself," she jabbed a finger at his chest. "What'd I say? Give it time. If it matters, it'll find you."

He looked far from satisfied with the answer- in fact, Jessi would say his expression wagered on desperate- but Mama Odie gave no more time to the subject.

"And besides, we don't got time for any of that! Y'all've got places to be."

"Right," Jessi agreed, diving right back into the matter. "We really need you to come back to the castle with us. I'm working with-"

"No!" Mama Odie cut her off, whacking her upside the head.

"-Ow!"

"They don't need my help way out there! If I leave, who's gonna keep all those shadows at bay?" She gestured to the window pointedly.

Ray shot Jessi a pointed look. "I told you they were still around."

"But-" Jessi began.

"No buts!" Mama Odie cut her off again. "Besides, you need bigger help than that. _Brighter_ help," she pointed with the snake over towards one of the wide-open sections of the ship, and through it they could see up into the sky that was beginning to dot with stars. Jessi traced the line of her snake up towards the brightest one in the sky.

"That's Neverland's star," Ray said.

"Ray," Mama Odie said with a smile, either a correction or an agreement, and Jessi got the distinct impression she wasn't talking about the girl standing next to them. "No. Look there," she moved her hand slightly over towards the large black expanse of empty sky sitting next to the other star.

"There's nothing there," Jessi said after a second or two.

"There sure isn't! I guess you'd better go and find out where she went!"

"She?" John asked.

"Wait," Jessi said, holding up her hands, "okay. I think I remember this bit from the movie. That, um, firefly was in love with... a star. And her name was, uh..."

"Miss Evangeline," Mama Odie confirmed.

"But… wait," Jessi said again. "Are we talking about an actual star, here? We can't just go and find some star that died out a billion years ago."

"Are we?" Mama Odie echoed, and Jessi was beginning to find her incredibly unhelpful. "What do you think?" But she was turned towards Ray.

Ray glanced skywards. "...I know it's really the wishing star."

"And?" she prompted.

"And…" Ray hesitated. "Like... from Pinocchio?"

Mama Odie laughed, this time very sincere. "Oh, she's a smart one!"

Jessi racked her memory. She hadn't seen Pinocchio since she was a kid, but a memory tugged at the back of her mind. A blue light. She wagered a guess. "The Blue Fairy?"

She looked much happier now that they all seemed to be grasping her little guessing game. "The very same."

Well, she _was_ brighter help, Jessi guessed. She recalled her being quite blinding in the movie. She looked up towards the empty span of sky. "What happened to her?"

"You tell me! What're you still standing around for!"

"Jessi sort of crashed our bus," Blaine admitted. "The only thing we need to find right now is some spare parts."

Jessi whirled around to face him. " _I_ crashed the bus?!"

"-And we're out of fairydust," he added.

"Bus? Who said anything about a bus?" Mama Odie said. "You can't get all the way out there," she gestured towards the absent star, "with a _bus_. No, you've got to take a boat."

Over the treetops, Jessi could just make out the lights of New Orleans in the distance. Walkable in just a few hours, she guessed, and naturally it would have boats.

"We don't have money," she protested.

"Y'all are just full of excuses! You'll figure something out."

"Blaine doesn't have any real clothes," said Jessi, who was indeed searching for more excuses.

Mama Odie gave her a look. "None of you blend in too well." She released the snake she was using as a cane, clapping her hands together. "Juju! Whip something up."

The snake (Juju, apparently) proved to be surprisingly strong, because it pushed its head up against a large trunk overflowing with clothes and started to push it over to their location until Ray stepped in to finish dragging it the rest of the way, tossing back the lid of the trunk and peering inside.

"Aw, man," she said, pulling something out and holding it up. "Dresses."

"What year is this movie set in?" Blaine was quick to dive in, rifling through the pile of clothes and holding up various shirts, eyeing them critically.

"1920s?" Jessi spitballed, just looking at the various dresses Ray was tossing aside. "1910s?"

"Too early for cell service," Blaine said.

"Just a little bit."

"But the fashion's alright."

"Speak for yourself," Jessi said. Once Ray had run off behind a curtain to change, Jessi took her place to toss aside various dresses with a frown.

"Nobody's saying you _have_ to wear a dress," Blaine said. "It doesn't work for everyone. I _definitely_ don't think it would work on you."

"Uh, thanks. But I'm not about to risk standing out when I know for a fact we're going to be a weird enough group already." Vaguely, she realized Mama Odie had wandered off elsewhere. Seemed like she was really in a hurry to get them out- it made her wonder if this Evangeline nonsense was really for them or if she had ulterior motives. She certainly wasn't being forthcoming with any information.

"Check it out!" Ray burst out from the curtain. Her dress was green, but Jessi could really only see the hem of it. A simple brown overcoat was buttoned up over it, and she sported slim boots. "I look old, right?"

She did suit the era, though the green ribbon she'd tied around her ponytail looked a little sloppy. They could fix that. "You gonna tolerate being in a skirt for that long?" Jessi asked.

"The fancy jacket makes it a little more okay," Ray said. "Plus it's just to blend in. We're undercover. Like spies."

"That's one way to look at it," Jessi said with a shake of her head. But she eventually settled on something simple, an off-white dress with a wide black lapel collar and belt around the waist. She could easily roll the sleeves up to her elbows to keep them out of the way, and she was pretty sure she'd spotted a pair of black boots in the chest. At least it would be sort of practical, though she loathed having to leave her jacket behind on the bus.

She quickly retreated behind the curtain to change, and when she was ready she'd found that the others were just as good to go. John volunteered to make the run back to the bus to drop off their old outfits, and once he'd returned he more or less grabbed an exact copy of his previous outfit- dress shirts never went out of fashion, Jessi guessed- though he'd grabbed a plain looking suit jacket in addition to that. Blaine had clearly taken a great deal of time to pick out his attire, which featured a vest and a cap. Jessi didn't really consider herself a good judge of appearances, but she had to grudgingly admit that he made it work.

"Shame we have to trudge through swamp water to get to town," Jessi remarked dryly.

"There seems to be a pretty clear path from what I saw," John said. "Just round the other side of the tree, though there's no telling when we'll run out of pathway and end up in the water again. But at least we don't have to take to swimming right away."

"Small mercies," Jessi agreed.

All four of them simultaneously jumped when a loud _thud_ suddenly sounded from behind them, and Jessi turned over her shoulder to see Mama Odie dropping another small (but apparently quite heavy) chest onto the ground. She dusted off her hands- how she had even carried it over here, Jessi had no idea- and gestured with a sweep of one arm towards it.

"Well?" she said expectantly.

The group exchanged a look.

"Well what?" John asked cautiously.

"Aren't you gonna open it?"

Another series of uncertain glances, but Ray went to step forward regardless before Jessi held one arm out in a 'wait a minute' gesture. For all she knew there could be a live animal in there and she wasn't about to get burdened with that.

"What's in it?" Jessi asked.

Mama Odie shrugged. "Just some presents. Souvenirs for the road." She hovered near the chest with something that might've been close to excitement, but it was hard for Jessi to read her emotions that well. The snake busied itself with moving around the rest of the room, though it didn't stray too far from her.

Ray took that as more than reason enough to bypass Jessi and went straight for the chest, kneeling down to unclasp the latches and toss back the lid. A visible cloud of dust escaped, and she waved it away, peering in with interest as she covered her mouth with one arm, sneezing several times in succession.

"Do we get to keep all of this stuff?" Her eyes lit up with interest, and Mama Odie laughed.

"'Course not! One each," she held up a finger, "that's the rule." There was pause for a moment or two, and then she pointed said finger at Blaine. "Him first."

"Aw, what?" Ray cried, and then sneezed a couple more times.

"If you insist," Blaine smiled, and he stepped forwards to sift through the box. It didn't take him long at all to get to an item he apparently deemed good enough to take- a fancy ring emblazoned with some kind of gemstone, though Jessi couldn't see the exact color from where she was standing. It was bound to be the most expensive item in the chest, and when he experimentally slipped it onto his finger it fit perfectly. "Alright," he said after he'd examined it in the light for a moment. "I'm good."

Mama Odie held out her hand. "Give it here."

Blaine seemed reluctant, but he pulled it off of his finger and placed it in her palm regardless.

She tossed it over her shoulder. "Nope!"

"What?" Blaine asked.

"That's not yours," she shook her head. "Try again."

"You said they were gifts," Blaine protested.

"They are," she agreed, "but you're looking for whatcha want. You're supposed to take what you _need_. That's just common sense."

"But I don't need any of this."

"You sure about that?" she pointed towards the box once more. "Look again."

He looked at her for another second before sighing through his nose and diving back into the chest. Every item he pulled out to hand to her received a shake of the head in response. They must have stood around watching him for all of five minutes before he produced a literal, actual stick- straight off of a tree- and passed it to her.

She laughed again, more genuine this time. "Oh, there it is! This is it, alright!"

"But it's a _stick_ ," Blaine said as she passed it back to him.

"Sure is," she agreed, and then gestured towards the other three. "Miss Rayleigh?"

Ray looked slightly less excited now that she'd realized they weren't getting their pick of the bunch, but she still stepped forward and dug through. Occasionally she pulled things out to gape at them. A dime, some kind of woodchip, a crystal tied with a string, a blue and orange pin.

But the first item that really caught her interest was a lighter, one of the vintage box-shaped ones. She flicked the lid back and lit it, watching the flame for a second before handing it over.

Mama Odie considered this, and then nodded. "Yep."

"What?" Blaine cried. "Why does she get to choose?"

"It's what she needs," she said simply. "You could've chosen that stick first, too, it's your own fault it took so long."

"Wait a second," Jessi said, "Ray's just a kid. Why does she need a lighter?"

"Why does Blaine need a stick?" Ray returned.

Jessi didn't have an argument for that. Neither did Blaine. But Mama Odie seemed to be having a grand time with this, for one reason or another, and she gestured towards the chest again.

"Your turn, little miss not-my-key."

Jessi scowled a little, but went over regardless and peered inside.

There was a whole mess of little objects in there, from trinkets like the ring Blaine had abandoned to more practical things like a translation book for some language or another to toys like tops and yo-yos. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for any of it.

After some sifting through, Jessi produced a metal whistle on a string and handed it to her. Helpful if she got lost, she guessed. Truthfully there didn't seem to be anything in there she particularly wanted.

Mama Odie was unimpressed. It was tossed over her shoulder with particular force. "Are you even trying?" she cried. "Look again!"

Jessi was about to argue that she _was_ looking, thanks, there was just nothing in here but a bunch of garbage, but she bit her tongue and went back to pulling things out to examine them. Finally, near the bottom, she came across a small square box with a raised lid. A narrow leather band was tied around it.

She popped the lid open, lifting it up to study it better. It was a compass, but it was apparently broken. The needle spun endlessly in a circle.

Still, it was kind of pretty (if a bit simple looking), so she presented it to Mama Odie, who smiled.

"A hand-me-down?" she asked.

"What?" asked Jessi.

"It's from that pirate movie," Ray answered, evidently recognizing the design. "There's a bunch of stuff in there from other movies." She was a bit distracted playing with the lighter, which further cemented Jessi's feeling that this was a bad idea.

That didn't help her much. "Is that why it doesn't work?"

"It's supposed to point to whatever you want the most, I think," Ray answered.

Jessi looked down at it. She was fairly certain of several things she wanted very much, and though she couldn't pick out which one was the thing she wanted most, she thought a magical compass should be able to figure that out without her spelling it out. But it just kept spinning. She opened her mouth to tell Mama Odie that it was broken, and she _knew_ she didn't have any need for a broken compass (why was it even here? Why had it been left with her?), but she'd already moved on.

"And you," she was over by John now, shaking her head with pursed lips. "I'm not so sure about you."

"Why not?" he asked.

"How can you know what you need if you don't know who you are?"

John thought on that. "I guess… I need to know who I am, then," he said finally.

"Well then, where'd you put 'em?"

"Put what?"

She pulled him down by the front of his jacket and rapped a knuckle against his forehead. "All those memories up in there! What'd you do with 'em?"

"I- I don't know," he said, startled.

"And where've you tried looking?"

He looked very much like he'd rather just skip over all the questions and get some straightforward answers, but he just shook his head. "I don't know," he said again.

"'Cause the first place I'd look is home," Mama Odie continued.

"I don't know where home is," he admitted.

"Then I guess you'd better go find it."

He stared at her for a while before moving towards the box, sifting through it before pulling something out. Her hand was already outstretched when he handed it to her, and a toothless smile spread across her face.

"That'll do it." And with that, she busied herself with closing back up the chest.

"What is it?" Jessi asked him. It looked like a mathematical instrument of some kind.

"It's a sextant," he said. "A celestial navigation device." He held it up towards one of the windows, facing the stars. "It's a tool used by sailors-"

"-To find their way home," she guessed. "What, does that mean you're a sailor now?"

"You already took the compass," he pointed out. "I didn't have much to work with."

She held it in her palm and studied the spinning arrow. "Not like it does me any good."

"Given we don't have a boat nor the money to obtain one, I doubt we'll get much use out of this, either," he admitted. "And even if we did, I wouldn't know which star is the right one to follow."

"That's just our luck," Jessi said. "Two navigational tools and neither one is useful."

"What're you all still hanging around for?" Mama Odie asked them, and she started gesturing them towards the door. "Go on, get! You got what you need. You know where you need to go. I can't help you."

"But what about the shadows," Ray said. "I don't want to walk out there at night!"

"What about 'em?" Mama Odie asked. "Don't make a difference if it's night or day, there'll always be shadows."

Jessi and the others peered through the doorway and out towards the dark swamp ahead of them, and the city lying beyond it.

"I'll... meet you guys at the bottom of the tree," she told the others. "I need a second."

"So do I," John muttered.

"You gonna intimidate me into giving you your memories back, Mister Doe?" Mama Odie asked with a crooked smile. "I'll give you a hint- I don't have 'em."

He stared at her for a second, and then looked to Jessi. "Y'know what, forget it. I'll be down there."

Blaine went with him, still sulking about the stick, and Ray followed after them with a lingering glance towards the lights in the boat. Jessi waited for a second.

"I really think you could help us at the castle," she said, looking over her shoulder.

"Do you, now?" Mama Odie asked her.

"We came all the way out here just to find people who can help," Jessi said. "I don't want to go back without anybody."

"Who said you don't got anybody? You've got them," she gestured with a hand towards the staircase.

Jessi found herself unable to comment on that. She opened and closed her mouth in an attempt to conjure up an explanation as to why they didn't count, but Mama Odie waved her off before she could continue.

"How about this. You ask me next time and then we'll see."

"Next time?" Jessi certainly didn't plan on coming back to a swamp for a vague answer like that.

"Gonna need that compass back eventually," she said with a smile, turning her back towards Jessi and starting back inside. "I lied about the hand-me-down! It's a loan!"

Jessi glanced down at the compass, then back towards Mama Odie, and then decided that all of this wasn't worth any of the effort she was putting into it. With a shake of her head, she started down the stairs.

* * *

AN: Alternate title for this chapter was 'running towards the plot via exposition at fifty miles per hour'.

All of the items are significant, or they will serve a significant purpose. Some sooner than others. Blaine's will take the longest to pay off, but I promise there's a reason.

Review responses:

JOHNHAMMOND1993: I'll keep it in mind as a suggestion! Tomorrowland will certainly, in some capacity, have a role in the story, but I won't reveal in what manner or how big that role will be just yet. I'm a little less certain of Up's role, but at least one of your submissions will be featured.

Chirithy564: Ahaha, you've got a very good read on Jessi as a person! I think loosening up and letting herself have fun is her biggest problem currently. Ray will probably be able to help in that regard, if Jessi will let her- and don't worry, I'm sure Ray will grow on her. She's just about the polar opposite of Jessi, and that annoys her right now because she knows that Ray isn't _wrong_ about things or the way she's handling the situation, but it's hard to accept how to do things her way. That and Jessi may need to learn to manage her temper a bit before she can really get along with anyone ;) . And good guess on the bird! I'm not going to confirm or deny anything, but I love hearing guesses regarding things I haven't revealed yet.


	10. Interlude One

Chapter Ten - Interlude One

"Only you can return the demons to the chest."

"Why us?"

"Because you let them out!"

-To All the Ghouls I've Loved Before

* * *

The clock on the wall was going to drive him mad.

He'd done a pretty good job of tuning it out at first, to be fair. For a while it helped him set the pace of his work, or at least it would have if he had gotten any work done to begin with. But the page in front of him was blank, and so that was pointless in and of itself. Furthermore, keeping pace with the ticking made the time feel much slower.

He wasn't sure what was taking so long, anyhow. Training sessions tended to get cut short- very short- and that this one was dragging on so long made him anxious. Perhaps something was going wrong? He could feel his wings twitching involuntarily at the prospect. He should go over and see, but they certainly didn't need any interruptions. He'd give it a while longer… how long had it been already, though? He'd been counting the seconds previously, but now that he was distracted he'd lost track entirely.

A loud clang from outside interrupted his thoughts, and that was followed by a surprised shout of triumph. Forrest turned to look out the small doorway of the hut he was in just in time to see Mags' greatsword fly out of her hand and land a couple of feet away in the dirt. A small victory, maybe, but relatively impressive given the size of the thing. More impressive still given how badly her pale gold armor was reflecting the sunset- Taran had to be near-blind from trying to keep an eye on her as the two of them sparred. Beyond the edge of the cliff face, Forrest watched another distant mountaintop crumble as the barrier sparked with the telltale light of another new arrival.

At this rate they would be the only peak left. He supposed in a way it was fortunate that they'd been told to remain here. It made an excellent lookout point, and Forrest had done a great deal of observing during his time here, though he had nothing to show for it. Despite how long he'd been training under Yen Sid (and he'd lost track- seventy years? eighty?), he had little interest in magic, at least compared to his fascination with more scientific notions. But measuring anything without equipment was near-impossible, and all of his belongings were left in the tower. He'd had little time to prepare before being sent out on his task, and immediately after both he and Mags had been passed off to Merlin to 'await further instruction'.

He was growing so very tired of waiting.

It had been fun at first, actually. Merlin was much more interested in science than Yen Sid was, at least to some degree, but he was absent so frequently that Forrest had only had a couple hours total to glean anything from him. He understood, really, he did, but he would be lying if he said he wasn't slightly disappointed. Disappointed and _bored_.

On some level, he knew it was only bothering him so much because the others constantly had things to do. Following Mags and Forrest's assignment to remain with Merlin atop the spire his home had been relocated to, two others had arrived nearly simultaneously, displaced when a large chunk of the other world fell into theirs. Taran, whose (slightly foolish) notions of heroism kept him constantly preoccupied with fighting Mags both verbally and physically, and Clancy, who Merlin trained with on a daily basis.

He understood why. Mags and Forrest had both been training in magic for decades, yes, but… well, that was just the problem. They'd been training for _decades_ and their magic had hardly advanced past a basic level. Neither of them cared for it, and that was the problem- there was no way to be dismissed from their training, purely because there was no way to get rid of their magic. But genuinely putting effort into instructing them further was a waste of everyone's time, and they all knew it. They were better off running on their missions, when the situation called for it, and other than that they were left to their own devices.

But Clancy was something else entirely. Forrest wasn't even sure Merlin knew how (unless he was keeping it from them, which he was want to do very frequently), but she'd picked up magic as she'd fallen in- from something or some _one_ , they weren't sure, but it was powerful and untamed, even in the very small quantity she possessed of it.

Useful, Merlin had decided. More so given she'd recognized the new holder of the key the instant Merlin had managed to conjure up an image of her (Jessi, as they'd later been informed), and that meant that Clancy could track her progress intermittently, in theory. Maybe even get a message out, eventually, but… given their training sessions lasted a few minutes at most, it wasn't going very well. There's been no solid progress in either regard, no proof that anything was working. Forrest didn't have high hopes for improvement.

Not like anyone asked for his opinion. Merlin kept training anyway, and Taran and Mags kept practicing even though Mags couldn't stand the kid and his improvement was minimal. More often than not it ended with Taran stomping off in a huff before going right back at it a mere hour or so later. Forrest wasn't one to lose his temper easily, but sometimes he wished he could find a rock to crawl under just for a few moments of silence.

He missed the silence. Forrest liked it here for the most part- he liked observing, and keeping his head down, and not making waves. But sitting around with nothing to do but listen to the fighting of the others had gotten old.

He abandoned the empty page in front of him to lean in the doorway, watching the sparring match with only vague interest. Mags huffily brushed off the handle of the sword with one armored hand, hefting it up over her shoulder and turning to give a stern eye to her opponent, who stood back with his own (much smaller) sword clutched tightly to his chest with both hands, a grin still wavering on his face as he tossed a lock of red hair out of his eyes.

"Well? How was that?" He asked expectantly, and Forrest winced at the inevitable shutdown the poor kid was about to receive. Forrest didn't think Taran had ever had any sort of proper combat training before, and he'd jumped right into lessons with the worst possible trainer in the entire realm, stranded without any of his friends around to combat the overwhelming negativity of Mags.

She was unimpressed, despite her defeat. "Here is some advice. If you need a magic sword to get a one-up on your opponent, it's not _you_ doing any of the work."

Taran looked affronted, as though he didn't know which point he wanted to argue about first. He debated over it for a couple of moments. "I'm not a child," he said finally, very near moping.

"Oh?" She didn't even try to feign surprise. "And how old are you?"

He hesitated to respond. The battle was already lost. "Fourteen."

"My point exactly." Mags struck her greatsword down into the ground with such force that the tip dug several inches into the dirt and the sword remained standing. She leaned on the handle- the thing was nearly as tall as she was, which was quite impressive given her 6'5" stature. It was no surprise that it held her brawny weight (and the weight of her heavy armor), either, given the width of the thing. Forrest didn't even want to guess how much it weighed, or how much damage it could really do. She jerked her head in his direction. "I would rather spar with Forrest. An honest fight."

"Aha, no thank you," Forrest said nervously. "I'm quite fine as I am. I value my limbs, actually."

Her scarred lips quirked into a grin. "Do you? Let us see how much effort you are willing to put forth fighting to keep them."

"It isn't _my_ fault the sword is magic," Taran spoke up suddenly, as though he'd just recalled the point he wanted to bring up for his argument. He crossed his arms. "If I could fight you with a regular weapon then I would. I would train properly. I mean it."

"A pointless argument," Mags said. "I am not here to be your teacher. I have had enough of sparring with children." She pushed away from her sword, moved towards the edge of the cliff and stood there with her hands on her hips. "I have had enough of all of this."

The stiff posture of her wings gave away her irritation, and the pale yellow tint of the jagged ripped edge of her right wing stood out plainly against the reddening sky. It made him wince just to look at it, even now, and it sharply offset the broad roundness of her wings' standard shape. He'd always envied them, on some level. His were narrow and pointed and bright green- tacky by anyone's standards, and he knew it very well.

She stared off at the desecrated mountaintop across from them. Forrest had entirely missed seeing the final portion of it fall away, replaced with… whatever. Some part of the other world, somewhere. He couldn't be sure of the specifics- he'd never taken the time to study the place. Most of those who had been left out of stories over there tended not to care about that world at all.

"It's going to drive me mad," Mags said finally.

Me too, thought Forrest grimly, but he just twiddled his thumbs as he and Taran watched her. Forrest certainly didn't want to speak to Mags when she was in a grouchy mood- grouchier than normal- and instead they simply stared off at nothing in bristling silence.

Taran lightly kicked at the dirt. "Merlin could make me one," he suggested sullenly. "A normal sword."

"He's, ah, a bit preoccupied, though, isn't he?" Forrest pointed out.

"Bah," Mags waved a hand dismissively over her shoulder at the same time. "Would not. He would say to use the magic one. Say it _chose you_. It chose nothing," she shook her head shortly. "It is called dumb luck. You are dumb and you got lucky."

"I am not-!"

"Do not take it so personally. Children are foolish."

Taran clenched his fists, and Forrest hurried to intervene.

"Please," Forrest interrupted, rubbing at his forehead. "Can we not do this? At least not right now? If Merlin comes back and we're fighting again he's going to be very cross."

Then, as if just speaking his name aloud had summoned him, a cloud of dust suddenly appeared right in the middle of the three of them. Clancy stumbled as she emerged, coughing, and fortunately Taran was quick to duck under her arm to support her. Merlin didn't even seem to notice, preoccupied as he was with dusting off his robe. Mags barely even glanced over her shoulder to observe the two of them.

"How did it go?" Forrest asked quickly, very grateful for something to diffuse the tension.

"Quite well!" Merlin responded cheerfully. He didn't elaborate. He never did. But this time around he seemed even more distracted than usual, if that was possible.

Clancy, on the other hand, winced and waved one hand in a vague so-and-so gesture. With her other hand she patted dust out of her curly hair. "That's being pretty generous, Merlin. Nothing happened. Again..."

"Historically speaking," Forrest chimed in, "those who hold the keys tend to be… stubborn. Er. Well. Difficult, might be more accurate…" he scratched at his cheek thoughtfully. "If any of your magic _is_ making it through, she might just be blocking it off. Maybe that's why we haven't gotten any feedback."

Clancy sighed. "That does sound like Jessi."

"What took you so long, Merlin?" Taran piped up.

"Ah. Hm. Yes. That. You two," Merlin paused in his stride, turned back to look at the four of them, and then waved a hand towards Forrest and Mags. "A word, if I may."

The two of them exchanged a quick glance before heading towards the small hut positioned near the back edge of the cliff ledge, Mags moving with much more purpose than the reluctant Forrest.

"Wait, did something really happen?" Taran called after them.

"Not to worry!" Merlin called over his shoulder. "Clancy will tell you."

"I will?" Clancy asked, very clearly quite lost, but he was already off, more in a hurry than he typically was, which was odd. Clancy genuinely seemed as though she had no idea what _had_ taken them so long- Forrest wouldn't have been surprised in the slightest if Merlin had kept it under his hat.

Once they were through the doorway, Merlin waved a hand and the door closed behind them. Forrest jumped at the sudden noise.

Mags wasted little time jumping into the subject. "Did you receive a message?" she asked urgently. "Word from Yen Sid?"

"You could certainly call it that," Merlin said, eyebrows furrowed as he pulled a chair aside and started sifting through some of what looked to Forrest like total junk cluttering up his desk. He glanced up briefly, eyeing Mags' expression. "Not an assignment. I wouldn't get your hopes up so easily," he chuckled.

Forrest glanced sideways at her. He thought there might've been the briefest flash of disappointment across her face, but she schooled her expression and leaned back, crossing her arms.

"No," Merlin continued. "He was merely sharing some, ah, insight. Advice. An observation." With each word he tossed a book over his shoulder, and Forrest watched with raised eyebrows as they somehow stacked on a nightstand all the way across the hut.

"Well which one is it?" Archimedes huffily poked his head out of the birdhouse in the corner, looking annoyed (as if he even possessed any other expressions).

"All three," Merlin responded crossly, turning to frown at him. "Don't interrupt me, it's very rude."

"You lot interrupted me first! I was trying to sleep!"

"Merlin," Mags cut them both off, exasperated. "What did he say?"

"Oh, yes. Well, it's the strangest thing, but he seemed to find it imperative to inform me that one of you may not have done your job entirely correctly," he raised his eyebrows. "Or he certainly implied as much."

A startled silence fell over the two of them. It didn't last long.

"What?" Mags straightened her back stiffly, somewhere between alarmed and indignant. The level of surprise was rare for her. "That's impossible. I completed my task with complete and utter efficiency. The boy has no trace of magic left in him."

"And memory?" Merlin asked, genuinely curious.

"Zero percent chance of recovery," Mags reported confidently. Forrest eyed her with a worried suspicion and she corrected herself with a roll of her eyes. "From outside sources. I was listening to the instructions, Forrest. Nothing is permanent, but no room was allowed for mistakes."

Fair enough, he thought. Forrest coughed discreetly as both of their gazes turned on him.

"Did it… have to be... zero percent, specifically?" He wrung his hands together nervously. "I'm with you on the whole nothing being permanent part, but, um..."

"Those were our orders," Mags told him, turning to face him directly. The stern intensity of her voice made his hands shake lightly. "Gone entirely. To be resolved _only_ once the situation has returned to normal. Did you or did you not do that?"

Forrest raised his hands defensively, waving them back and forth in panicked reassurance. "No one's going to suspect anything, I promise! But… it's my first time doing a memory spell, so you see- I mean, the appearance part, that was easy, but then-"

Mags cursed loudly, bringing her fist down harshly and slamming it against the table in the center of the hut. Merlin looked unphased somehow, but Archimedes poked his head out of the birdhouse again, scowling at the lot of them.

"Excuses, excuses!" He flew his way over towards Forrest, who ducked, covering his head with his arms even as the owl just swooped low overhead and settled on a perch behind him. "If all you're going to do is complain then at least you could do so quietly!"

"Who was complaining?" Forrest protested. "I was only being honest!"

"But not forthcoming." Mags paid Archimedes no mind. "What have you done?"

"Okay, so there's a weak point," Forrest admitted in a hurry, gaze focused intently on his shoes. "I picked up on it way too late to fix it. But it's only susceptible if he gets too close to the source. I- I didn't think it would matter." Or that Yen Sid would notice. "And what are the odds of-?"

"Too high. Any number over _zero_ is too high," she snapped at him. "Do you have any idea how much of a target you have painted on his back?"

"There wasn't any time left to fix it, honest! I know I messed up, I'm sorry, but-"

"Do you have any idea what this means?" Mags said. Forrest opened his mouth to say something, but she held up a gloved hand, pointer finger raised to stop him. "No. Let _me_ explain. Your shoddy spellwork left an opening that means everything you did to suppress those memories- any work you have done to try and disguise that magic- it is going to be unraveled."

"Only if-"

" _I am not finished_. Whichever dark forces have a hand in all of this-" she spread an arm out towards the window, gesturing out at the distant mountaintops and above that, the barrier between worlds. "-they are going to snuff out one of the last remaining traces of purely light magic that we know of."

"But. Not… the _very_ last," he protested.

"The _very_ last is an eight year-old child."

Forrest could feel sweat rolling down the back of his neck. "Okay," he admitted weakly. "When you lay it all out like that it does sound a little bad."

"Merlin," Mags turned towards him, her voice grave. "Allow me to leave to fix this."

"But what're you going to do?" Forrest fretted.

Mags hesitated for only a second. "I will explore my options. If this cannot be fixed then removal is not off of the table."

"Removal?!" He echoed. "You can't just remove a _person_. That's not how it works!"

"If he is gone then he cannot be found, obviously. And then the dark forces will not be able to exploit any light magic. Is that not what we're doing, here?" She spread her arms out slightly. "Our assignment was to ensure that no more light could be taken."

"You can't let her do that." Now it was Forrest's turn to appeal to Merlin. The old wizard did at least sort of appear to be listening, though he was seated at the table by now and stirring a cup of tea. "Tell her it's wrong."

"Hm?" Merlin glanced up. For once, both Forrest and Mags were equally frustrated with each other (and with his apparent dismissal of their entire argument), and it was hard to keep from sounding disrespectful even with their attempts to quell their anger.

"Yen Sid brought this concern to you because he wants it fixed," Mags said. "I am the most qualified to fix it."

"She's going to kill him," Forrest protested.

"I said I would consider it if it becomes apparent that it is the safest option. Do not put words in my mouth."

Forrest shook his head. He suddenly didn't know how Yen Sid could have possibly trusted her to get the boy into hiding, and despite the voice in the back of his mind telling him that he knew full well Mags was not an overly cruel individual, he worried for his state of being.

"Well now," Merlin said, tapping his spoon against the cup casually, "I don't see why we should have to resort to such drastic measures. What did you say the weak point of your spell was, my boy?"

Forrest blinked. "Just, um, getting too close to the source…" Merlin just looked at him expectantly, fingers steepled, and Forrest hesitated to put it in a more personal manner. "Going home. I guess." He scratched at his neck out of habit.

"Then keep him away," Merlin said it as though it were obvious.

Mags drew her broadsword (a dangerous endeavor in such a small space) and nodded curtly. "I will guard all entrances to the town. No one will be permitted to approach."

"Well, I do appreciate your initiative, but I was talking to Forrest."

"What?" Mags and Forrest both spoke up simultaneously.

"Owning up to your mistakes is a very brave thing to do. But it does not set them right," he looked at Forrest, who averted his gaze.

"You're right," Forrest said uncertainly, "but… no offense, but I wouldn't be able to keep anyone away from… anywhere." At least not compared to Mags.

"Hm?" Merlin was already on his feet, rifling through a dresser and pulling out various articles of clothing before finding a satchel and tossing it Forrest's way. He caught it against his chest. "Oh, nonsense. You'll do fine."

"You cannot be serious," Mags spluttered.

Merlin walked over with an armful of random objects, and Forrest fumbled to open up the satchel so he could dump them in. He wasn't sure how they all fit in there. "But of course I'm serious!"

She stood there for a couple of seconds, opening and closing her mouth to argue further, but it was clear to both of them that Merlin was already set on his decision. He had very likely been set on it to begin with, and he was right- this was Forrest's job, and he knew it. All he could do now was damage control.

He averted his gaze as Mags eyes lingered on him, and then without another word she turned on a heel and stomped off. He only ventured a look over his shoulder once he was certain she was out of the hut. She had her sword drawn, standing in front of the training dummies that had been set up for her practice sessions, but she wasn't attacking just yet.

She was still staring at Forrest. The finality in her gaze made him shudder.

"Now," Merlin said, and it took him a second to realize that he'd started to leave the hut. Reluctantly, Forrest trailed after him, head ducked down as they passed by Mags. "You mustn't waste any time. For all we know we might already be too late."

"That's really reassuring, thank you," Forrest muttered. "Shouldn't I at least… I don't know, bring Clancy?"

He looked towards the hut. Clancy and Taran were both standing underneath a tree, a safe distance away from Mags, and though they appeared to be conversing Taran was quite clearly straining to hear their conversation. If Clancy was doing the same, she was doing a better job of appearing casual. He wondered how much they had already heard, but then again, Merlin had ways to ensure that nothing was heard that he didn't want to be. "What if we run into Jessi, or…?"

Merlin followed his line of sight and folded his hands together, thinking for a moment before wrapping an arm around Forrest's shoulders and leading him closer to the edge of the cliff. Forrest shuffled backwards minutely, nervous at the proximity to the drop despite his wings.

"I do have some concerns," Merlin admitted, "and I'm afraid one of them is that… well, to put it simply, that would be rather counterproductive."

"What do you mean?" Forrest asked, confused.

"You do know the specific sort of magic we're trying to keep hidden, don't you, lad?"

"Of course," Forrest said.

"Hm. And what do you make of Clancy's magic?"

Forrest squinted a little. He felt like he knew where this was going, but it made no sense. In truth, he knew little of the magic she'd picked up. He hadn't paid it much mind- people stumbled upon magic all the time. "It's… very bright, from what I saw of it." It would definitely attract attention, even if it wasn't-

"Yes, very bright," Merlin continued casually. "And very blue, wouldn't you agree?"

Forrest stared at him for a second or so, raising a hand to his forehead and gripping it with disbelief. "You don't actually think-"

"Well, that's all it is, isn't it? Hm? Just a thought." Merlin lit his pipe. Forrest hadn't even noticed him bring it outside with him.

Forrest shook his head slightly. "It's a coincidence, then."

"Now, how did that old saying about fate go?"

"But she _couldn't_ have gotten ahold of… of any of that. There wasn't anything left. We checked. I ran tests," Forrest protested. It had died out long before Clancy had arrived- the moment the barrier had been broken for the first time, as a matter of fact. Multiple days ago. Right before he'd gone out with Mags to remove the last traces of it. Yen Sid hadn't detected anything more.

"Then surely you must have accounted for a margin of error."

Forrest stared at him for a solid three seconds or so before sighing heavily.

"Alright," Forrest said. He could _feel_ his stress levels rising with how much he had to keep track of. But that wasn't his concern, nonsensical as it was, and he had to push it aside. Fix his mess first, and then… well, maybe there was some way to find out more after that. If Merlin and Yen Sid were both aware of it… who else was there that could possibly study things properly? The situation was in capable hands. "So we play it safe. And, um, I guess I'll just… go and wait, then…" he trailed off, and then crossed his arms thoughtfully. He suddenly realized that this whole guarding position was technically indefinite. "I'm not going to be able to get back after I leave."

Merlin said nothing, but didn't deny it.

Forrest sighed heavily, though it quickly shifted into more of a hysterical laugh, and ran a hand through his hair. "Cool."

It was not cool.

"But… when she sees me leave you know she's going to be upset. I should at least-"

Merlin waved a hand. "Not to worry, not to worry. Magnolia will tell her all she needs to know."

"Oh, well, that's going to go over very well," Forrest said. She was going to slander his name entirely, he was sure of it.

"I'm glad you think so."

"Yeah, Mags is known for her tact."

It was difficult to read his expression properly behind that beard of his, but Merlin's eyes made it seem as though he was smiling. "Careful, lad, or someone might think you were being insincere."

"Wouldn't want that," Forrest mumbled. He folded a long brown jacket into his bag, the final article he'd yet to pack, and then slung it over his shoulder, careful to avoid his wings. He sighed, straightened out his shirt, and then turned on his heel to give Merlin a sharp salute.

"I'll keep this under control, Merlin," he said, and then faltered. "Or… I'll try. I promise."

Merlin smiled at him. "And we'll hold down the fort."

He hoped they would. More than that, he hoped they figured out exactly what it all meant, because Forrest knew he was completely and totally lost. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and then hopped backwards, leaning into the fall as he plummeted off of the cliff. A few seconds down, he spread his wings out, swooping into a glide as they caught the wind.

He glanced over his shoulder as he departed. Merlin had already turned and left.

* * *

AN: Forrest and Magnolia are OCs. It should go without saying, but Taran, Merlin, Archimedes and Yen Sid are not. This chapter occurs at the same time as the previous chapter.

JOHNHAMMOND1993: I think I can definitely fit that in somewhere, thank you!

Chirithy564: This group is definitely a little more inclined to stay off of the radar than Sora is, and that means blending in. And any and all fanart would be awesome- I've actually drawn a few pieces for this story already but don't really have anywhere to put them, haha. And connections like that are a necessity given the premise, I feel- it all has to be connected like one world would be, and this seemed like one of the more obvious connections to make. In general I'm excited for the rest of this world, it's definitely going to push Ray very far given how strongly she's against even being there in the first place. Thank you for the review!


	11. The Light

Chapter Eleven - The Light

"'I'm not afraid,' she declared, and she wasn't. She was angry, which is the more productive cousin of fear."

-Welcome to Night Vale

* * *

Jessi awoke with a jolt and the lingering feeling of someone watching her. She glanced over her shoulder instinctively, saw nothing, and then looked skyward though she wasn't sure why she was doing so. What had she even dreamt of? She couldn't remember now, but it made her skin crawl just to try and call it into the forefront of her mind and she felt a headache developing behind her left eye. She was getting very tired of that. The headaches, that is. The dreams, too, though this had only been the second one. It lost its novelty quickly.

Whatever it was, it had been so quick. Nothing like the last dream, although she couldn't even recall the last dream completely now. But as she sat and thought on it she did recall the bird, so she looked skyward again. But there was nothing there but the dim stars and it hurt her neck, craning it backwards and staring upwards like that, so she turned her gaze back down towards the fire. That light had been there again, she was sure of it, even if it was hard to picture what light she was thinking of now. She ran her hands up and down her arms. It wasn't cold, but she had goosebumps.

"What was that about?" Blaine asked, and she jumped a bit and looked sharply to her left. He was wide awake and lounging against a log, bored and uncomfortable-looking.

Jessi looked around the perimeter of the campfire before she answered (she wasn't even sure how to answer to begin with), and it took her a few moments to realize that Ray had moved up into one of the wide, low branches of a tree, where she was sleeping with her coat tucked under her head. Jessi guessed it was a good thing she apparently didn't roll around much in her sleep. John was just leaning up against the base of the same tree, and he'd evidently borrowed Blaine's hat, which was pulled down over his eyes because of the brightness of the fire.

For some reason, it took her longer still to recall where they were. A little more than halfway through the swamp- they'd stopped because Ray had been too tired to walk, and John had been too tired to carry her much further than he already had (out of the two of them, Blaine actually had far more arm strength, but of course he wouldn't do any heavy lifting even if it was just a matter of carrying a kid for an hour or two).

A quick nap wouldn't hurt, Jessi had agreed reluctantly. She didn't remember starting a fire, though, as it had been sunset when they'd stopped- not yet completely dark, or at least not to this degree. She didn't doubt that Ray had been the one to start it. Jessi was still, quite frankly, questioning the wisdom of giving a kid fire. Then again, she was still very much in the process of questioning Mama Odie in general. She'd been far from helpful. John was still more bitter than the rest of them about that fact. He hadn't hesitated to express as much for the first while as they were walking although that had turned to silent moping afterwards.

"What time is it?" she asked finally, not quite groggy but very much confused. .

Blaine made a face, though she couldn't tell if it was directed at her or if he was upset about sitting in the mud. "How should I know?"

She couldn't even recall who had been on watch when she'd first gone to sleep, nor did she have a guess at how long it had been, and she doubted Blaine would be very useful regarding answering either of those questions. Idly, she rubbed at her eyes, which stung from the brightness of a light that was no longer present.

However long it had been, she had no desire to hang around in the swamp a moment longer than she had to. It was creepy, though she didn't like to admit that- she'd never been scared of the dark, but the possibility of alligators was probably very real and she'd never visited Florida enough to come to terms with their general existence. Blaine wouldn't complain about moving on, and she doubted John would either, so one way or another it would be better to get a move on sooner rather than later. Besides, they still had a town to get to. Making it by sunrise sounded like a good goal to her. She was beginning to realize she didn't care for this movie, and given none of the others did either… it made sense to get out. Or at least get to the protagonists. She did recall liking Tiana when she'd first watched it, though her memory of anything else was spotty.

Blaine was apparently glad to have someone to complain to, because he launched right into talking while she'd been looking around although he had very little of use to say. "I don't think we should have stopped," he confided. "Never mind the fact that they're fine with sleeping in _mud_ , it would've saved us a lot of trouble if we just walked the rest of the way to the city tonight."

"You hate exercise," Jessi pointed out, even though she agreed with him. He'd been whining long before the others had, to the point that even John had snapped at him.

It had sort of been an uphill battle for John, actually, when it came to dealing with Blaine. He seemed convinced that he could teach the guy that the world didn't actually revolve around him, but that was above and beyond a lost cause. Blaine had probably grown up with people around constantly to wait on him, with private tutors and all. He was charismatic, sure (to the point that Jessi really hated it- how could no one manage to see past that act?), but he'd clearly never really deemed anyone worthy of actually connecting to him before.

"Excuse me, I just hate walking out _here_ ," he corrected her with a dramatic sweep of an arm, "this humidity is awful for my hair." He ran a hand over his hair (which was still somehow in very good shape, at least compared to Jessi's massive knot of hair), slightly offended, though that quickly turned to bragging. The look he gave her was pointedly very proud. "But you haven't seen me dance. And my physical trainer is-"

Jessi rolled her eyes, tuning him out. She didn't care, frankly, how much exercise he put up with one way or another. On one hand it didn't really surprise her to find out Blaine had had a personal physical trainer. Given his family's position there was no doubt he could afford it. Despite the obvious lack of manual labor he'd had to do he was surprisingly well built, and if he hadn't so obviously looked like a model she could have guessed he was on a sports team of some kind.

She wanted to ask if he'd seriously never gone camping before, as, like, a family activity or something, but then again… considering the way Blaine had apparently been raised, she doubted his family was really big on bonding activities. Outside of spoiling him rotten, that is. One way or another she was quickly realizing that there was very little she actually enjoyed talking to Blaine about, but he was right about one thing- they should get to the city quickly.

"We should wake them up," she decided, rising to her feet. She felt the urge to glance over her shoulder, but saw nothing there. The anxiety gnawing at her stomach wasn't satisfied with this. "We're probably not that far out from the city." That and she felt the nearly urgent desire to keep moving. Maybe she just felt vulnerable being out in the open in the swamp, especially considering… what had happened last time she'd dreamt like that…

A howl echoed from somewhere off in the distance. Not quite an animal noise.

Blaine, evidently, had reached some kind of conclusion at the same time as her, even if he wasn't really aware of it. He idly snapped a twig in half and tossed it into the fire. His tone was suspiciously wary, and even he glanced over his shoulder and above him at the distant howl. He caught her worried gaze. "So is this going to be a regular thing with you? Wake up screaming and then sic giant birds on us?"

"...I don't know," Jessi said finally, eyes scanning the dark sky. Idly, she realized that he'd mentioned she'd woken up screaming. She wondered why. But she didn't hear any birds, and the one last time had come about much quicker. That hadn't been a bird noise, in any case, unless birds howled and no one had informed her about it. It could have been an owl in a great amount of pain or something, but she wouldn't bet money on that. She took a few steps backwards from the fire, reaching out with a foot to nudge John's leg. "But you've probably jinxed us now. Nice going."

"If you seriously believe in that sort of thing that's on you, not-"

The campfire was, abruptly and without warning, snuffed out entirely.

Jessi and Blaine both stood stock-still in the darkness, barely daring to breathe. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise up, and in the distance she heard what sounded like a howl of wind, closer this time.

"-And suddenly that whole 'jinxing' thing seems like a slightly more valid concern," Blaine said after a solid few seconds of horrible silence. There hadn't been any indication of that happening before. Nothing tossed on the fire, no movement, no wind, no sound. "That's not normal, right? I'm not alone in thinking that was super weird?"

"Uh." Jessi felt herself suddenly and increasingly inarticulate, mind running a mile a minute. "No." The panic that had built up into her chest rushed into her head all at once with a certain clarity, snapping forth with an alarming amount of force, and she paced backwards a few more steps and stooped to the ground, grabbing John and hauling him to his feet. He was less than thrilled, but more confused than anything.

"What's-"

"Up. Get up," Jessi snapped. "Where's the bag?"

"I don't- what in the world's going on?" There was a pause, and Jessi got the impression that he was looking around, taking note of the pitch-black swamp. John's voice turned indignant. "Hey, why's the fire out?"

"Got the feeling that we're gonna have company real soon," Jessi said, and unable to even remotely guess which branch Ray was sleeping on in the pitch-black of the night, she settled for shouting. "Ray! We're leaving!"

"I'm already up," Ray mumbled crossly from somewhere above Jessi's head, sounding hardly awake. "I barely even got to sleep…"

"Yeah, well, we've got bigger problems."

"Not another bird, I hope," John fretted. "Or worse, a frog..."

Jessi scanned the treetops again with a shake of her head. "I think we would've noticed a bird by now. It must be something else." She didn't even want to entertain the idea of a giant frog.

"I still don't follow. Does this- I mean, what happened?"

"Jessi's not allowed to sleep anymore," Blaine said crossly, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Good of him to wait for them, she thought distantly. Then again, she was sure it stemmed from him not wanting to be running on his own. That and the guy probably had no sense of direction to speak of.

"...Huh?"

"It's not her fault. I _told_ you we shouldn't be in this movie," Ray said matter-of-factly, suddenly much more awake, "and none of you believed me!"

She tossed the bag down to Jessi, or at least in her general direction, and Jessi stooped down and slung it over her shoulder. "Alright," she said. "Let's get out of here quick. Blaine, you get in front. John, too. I'll take up the back."

She waited for a second or so for Blaine to move ahead of the rest of them, but heard nothing save for a sudden shout and the frantic crashing of the underbrush. Jessi leapt backwards, though nothing had touched her, looking frantically around though her eyes hadn't yet adjusted fully. There had been a flurry of movement near the edge of their makeshift camp, but she saw nothing moving now, and only John was standing next to her.

"Blaine?!"

"Jessi," Ray spoke up quietly, still up in the branch, and her voice had a quality to it that Jessi hadn't heard before. It sounded shaky, caught in her throat, and Jessi turned around to face her with some level of concern but then something caught her eye first. " _Look_."

Their camp was barley illuminated by the cooling embers of the dead fire- that and whatever light was up in the sky- but it was more than enough to see the form of Blaine now, suspended upside-down in the air by an ankle.

"Wh-"

Jessi stared for what felt like an eternity until her eyes gave in and at least slightly adjusted to the light of the moon and the remaining stars. She could make out Blaine's eyes, wide and panicked, and then above that a shadowy… _something_ wrapped around his ankle, dangling him like a toy. A hand, she realized, and it was connected to a thin, knobby arm that didn't even seem human- the length of it stretched all the way up the trunk of a tree and though the light was pale she could make out two narrow eyes peering at her from the shadow. Two pointed ears (horns?) extended into the branches.

The pieces fell into place.

"Oh, _shit_ ," Jessi said, and behind her she heard Ray scrambled up higher in the tree until she was perfectly hidden amongst the leaves, safe from the moonlight that revealed the position of the rest of them.

They were out of time. Already, so soon; Jessi felt frustration well up deep within her at the unfairness of it. They'd been as careful as they could, none of them caused any undue noise save for maybe Ray on occasion but she couldn't even blame this on Ray. Some nonsensical beam of light didn't have any right to jump into her life and put them in danger when Jessi couldn't even do anything to stop the thing. Her nails dug into the palms of her hands.

"What in the world is that?" John asked from somewhere beside her, and she couldn't entirely tell if he sounded awed or just terrified.

"It's a shadow," Jessi said, voice low even though the thing had obviously already spotted them. She kept herself crouched low and still, like the thing was an animal attempting to track their movement. Its unreal gaze was fixed steadily on her, wavering slightly as thin clouds moved in front of the moon.

John didn't quite get the memo. Not like it would have helped. "But that's absurd. Shadows can't- HEY!"

Without warning, John's feet were suddenly yanked out from under him (or at least that's what Jessi assumed- all she could see was another blur of motion, and then she heard a painful-sounding thud), and then within a matter of seconds he was suspended in the air with Blaine, held up by the back of his collar by a sharp, spindly hand.

Jessi couldn't figure out for the life of her what the shadows were doing. If she didn't know better she'd say that they were just studying the two of them, because they certainly weren't taking there anywhere- both of them just remained hanging in the air, and though Blaine was apparently too petrified to move he didn't really seem hurt.

It was harder to tell with John. From all impressions, he just seemed angry, and he kicked out a leg in the direction of the shadow's body- or at least whatever body it _had_ \- stretching up the trunk of a tree. She realized that she'd mistaken his caution back on the ship for cowardice. There was no trace of either now, and he twisted in the thing's grip, trying to swing himself around enough to land a hit on it. It watched him with amused indifference, as if he were a bug under a magnifying glass or something. "Put me down! _Right now_!"

"You can't hit it," Ray shouted at him, though there was far more panic than actual fire in her words. Surprisingly, the shadow didn't react to her voice at all, and Jessi wondered if the thing was only finding them via light or motion like she'd assumed. "It's a shadow! You're just gonna make it mad!"

"Then how's it grabbing me?!"

"I don't know! It was just like that in the- _Jessi_!"

Ray's warning came too late- that or Jessi just didn't have quick reflexes. Either way, she had hardly turned her head over her shoulder when she was forcibly slammed against the truck of the tree next to her and then dragged up it until she was pinned several feet into the air by a hand pressing into her shoulder with great force. Looking down, she saw nothing but the shadow of a hand across her torso, but the pressure was still very real and despite frantically kicking and attempting to push off against the trunk, she couldn't move.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a distorted face leer at her from the branches above her head. More than ever, she thought her guess might have been correct- she felt very much like she was being studied like some sort of specimen. Across the clearing she saw the slightest hint of movement and Ray moved further up the tree once again. Though Jessi wasn't sure how she'd been overlooked, she was in no place to complain. Hopefully she was attempting to get to the other side to run. She could get help, or… Jessi didn't know. They didn't seem to have many options, not without knowing what the shadows had in mind.

For better or worse, they didn't have to wait incredibly long to find out.

Jessi spotted it before it spoke- another long, spindly shadow sidling its way into camp. This one, though, was far more distinct than the others, sporting a top hat and a cane of some sort. It made its way across the tree trunks, gliding up alongside them and then positioning itself in front of the other three shadows, a grin wavering across its face. It looked… vaguely familiar. Jessi squinted at it.

"Well!" It- he?- cried gleefully, turning to get a good look at the three of them suspended in the air. They probably looked ridiculous. She guessed that was the least of their concerns, though. "Look what we've got here." He glanced at the shadows. "Good work, fellas."

The voice prompted something in her, and she thought back to Mama Odie's words from earlier. "Shadowman?" She guessed.

"Please," he said, and the bow he swept himself into was incredibly mocking. "Call me Doctor Facilier. Everybody does."

Jessi frowned. She could've sworn he'd been defeated at the end of the movie, but… he'd had a body then, too, and this was definitely just a shadow with no man attached. Had he come back somehow, looking like this? She shook her head.

"Now, I'd love to stick around for a proper introduction, but the fact of the matter is we've got some work to do," he continued, wavering back and forth in the light of the moon. His fingers were steepled together. "Much as I hate to admit it, I'm just the delivery boy for this particular errand."

The three shadows' grip tightened on them, or at least the hands holding Jessi in place did.

"Hold your horses, boys." Facilier raised one hand into the air, pacing in front of the three of them (though really his form just rippled along the ground, and it was strange the way a flat shadow could still carry so much presence). "Gotta make sure we've caught the right pests, first."

"Pests?!" John piped up indignantly, and Facilier's head snapped over to him. Jessi tensed, suddenly very afraid that he was going to be hurt, but the shadow just grinned, rising up to project itself onto the tree trunk next to him. It couldn't quite manage to lean casually, but it gave off that sort of air regardless.

"Well now," he said, and laughed, even in the face of John's scowl. "This _is_ a surprise. Heard you were here but didn't quite believe it. Where's your boy?"

Some kind of look that Jessi couldn't place crossed his face, but John schooled it quickly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Shame." Facilier didn't really seem all that perturbed, and he moved over to look at Blaine, who had fortunately been flipped right-side up so as to save his head from the blood rush (she guessed maybe Facilier didn't want them immediately dead, which she was thankful for).

He glanced him up and down. "Always good to have a spare," he decided finally. The indifference in his voice evidently set Blaine off, because he huffed at him.

"You can't touch me," Blaine said. "My father's already started a worldwide search for me. They'll find you and you'll go to jail, don't think you won't."

Facilier laughed. "You really think you matter that much?"

Blaine wasn't even remotely fazed. In fact, he sounded as though the answer was quite obvious. "Um, yes."

"Willing to make a bet on that?"

"As a matter of fact I-"

"No!" John cut Blaine off hurriedly, frowning at him.

Intervening quickly in an attempt to change the subject before the situation could worsen, Jessi asked, "who told you we were here?" Despite her misgivings about Blaine, she sort of envied how self-assured he was, but that didn't change the fact that this debate could easily spiral.

Facilier gestured dismissively with one hand at the shadows holding the three of them up. "Got more eyes than I know what to do with."

And they'd waited until it was dark, Jessi figured with a scowl. They'd been trailed this entire time.

"Wasn't sure we had it right, at first," he admitted, and turned to face her with another wide smile. "Didn't know what you looked like. Maybe if you hadn't been standin' right under a spotlight…"

The light, Jessi thought, the one from her dreams, maybe, though she wasn't entirely sure she knew what he meant. She didn't know what else it could be.

"What spotlight?" she asked anyway.

Facilier looked at John. "Care to elaborate? I'm sure you of all people must have a guess."

"No," John said, quite clearly still cross. "I don't even-"

"I get it, I get it," Facilier snapped, cutting him off. "You don't know. You're mighty boring when you're clueless." He shook his head dismissively. "Forget I mentioned it."

"Are you working with someone else?" Jessi kept pressing. She hesitated for half a second, and she noticed John looking at her with either concern or panic, probably because he knew full well she was going to say something stupid. "Because the least they could do is send out an actual threat to deal with us. I mean, delivery boy? Really?"

It was very difficult to read the expression of a shadow, but Jessi got the impression that if he had any eyebrows to arch, Facilier would have been doing so. "Actual threat?" he echoed. She didn't much care for his tone.

"You're just a shadow," she said, which in hindsight was a stupid thing to say given said shadows were literally holding them up in the air.

There was an abrupt burning sensation in her chest- almost like heartburn, though it was on the skin level, for the most part. Jessi tried to dismiss it, and then the briefest glow of light up in the trees drew her attention away from it regardless. It was gone as soon as she looked over at it. Fortunately, none of the shadows noticed her line of sight.

Strange, she thought, unsure of what either sensation had been. It was pulled out of her mind very quickly.

"What's it matter who I work with?" Facilier finally dismissed the question entirely, spinning a shadowy cane around flippantly as he paced the clearing. "Point is, they're gonna be _very_ happy to see you three."

"Four," Ray said suddenly.

All four of the shadows in the clearing- the three holding them and Facilier- looked over towards the tree. Ray was standing underneath it.

Facilier looked back and forth between the shadows and her, gesturing pointedly as if to ask how on earth they'd managed to miss grabbing the fourth member of the party. Frustrated, he opened his his mouth to respond, but Ray wasn't finished.

"But you're not taking any of us to anybody," she said, crossing her arms.

There was a while of hesitation, and Jessi was afraid that he'd call in more shadows and they'd restrain Ray, too- she still remembered how terrified she'd seemed at the initial prospect of the shadows. She opened her mouth to call out to him, maybe to distract him, but then she caught sight of movement out of the corner of her eye. She glanced over and John was shaking his head vehemently at her.

"What?" she hissed.

He mouthed something to her. ' _It's okay_ '. Jessi wanted to argue that there was nothing about this situation that was okay, actually, but she looked back towards the ground and noticed Ray very subtly remove something from her pocket, clasping her hands behind her back.

"Oh I'm not, am I?" Facilier asked. He seemed at least moderately entertained by this twist of events, and Jessi was certain he didn't even view Ray as a real roadblock in whatever was going on.

Another part of her, still screaming to intervene, wanted to ask more questions. Find out where he would take them, and why, and what he knew, but a more rational part of her brain told her that was a bad idea. She wouldn't like whatever answer she got, she knew that full well, as it was unlikely they'd be given any sort of verbal response. And she could only stall for so long.

"Nope," Ray confirmed. "You're not."

He took a step towards her, and then another. Ray glared at him. "You've got guts," he said, though it was less in admiration and more in sheer amusement. "What's your name?"

"Ray."

He turned to study her properly. "That's what we in the magic business like to call cosmic irony, you know."

Jessi had no clue what he was talking about. Ray didn't even entertain whatever it was. "I don't care," she told him matter-of-factly. The waver in her voice said that she sort of did care, or at least she cared that she was up against the thing she'd hated so much from the very start. He took a step further, circling around her before leaning up against another tree. Her lack of response caused him to tilt his head slightly.

"Don't care about much of anything, do you? Thought kids like you were supposed to be scared of the dark." His shadow tilted more fully towards Ray, leering over her.

Ray didn't move. She didn't even flinch. Instead she stood her ground, shoulders back and chin raised even though her jaw quivered. "Yeah, well, I'm not scared of you," she said, hands balled tightly into fists on her hips. There was something clutched in her left hand. Jessi saw the brifest glint of it as it caught the light of the moon. "Jessi was right. You're just a shadow."

"Am I? Well, I've got some news for you, little girl," Facilier said with another exaggerated tilt of his head, a crooked smile stretching across whatever face he had left. "Shadows are just as real as any man. Just take a look," he spread an arm out towards Jessi and the other two, held up and restrained as if bound by a physical force. "You don't even want to _know_ the full extent of our powers."

Ray didn't even follow the gesture with her eyes, and to Jessi's surprise she saw what looked like a smile starting to form on the kid's face. The 'I'm going to ruin your whole day and not even care' sort of smile that only kids could pull off. Like the face Herman made when he was going to do something incredibly reckless and stupid and kind of impressive.

"But you know what they can't do?" she asked, with an innocence that very much didn't suit the poised air around her.

Facilier looked distinctly unimpressed, even from the limited view Jessi had of him. "I can't _wait_ for you to tell me."

Jessi suddenly heard a clicking noise and within a second Ray had lunged forward, something bright and orange in her hand. Her face was frozen with either fear of exhilaration, teeth gritted.

"They can't survive in the light!"

 _The lighter_ , Jessi realized, and she watched as Ray ran forward enough to swipe out with an arm, cutting the flame through the shadowy form stretched across one of the tree trunks. There was the hiss of smoke and an unearthly wail and then John abruptly dropped to the ground with a grunt. Jessi watched, not comprehending what was happening, as the last wisps of darkness floated up to join the pale light of the stars.

Light. That was why the shadows had snuffed out the fire. Ray was using the light to dissipate the shadows.

Facilier jerked backwards, away from the small circle of light emanating from the lighter in Ray's grasp, and in short order she'd jabbed and swiped her way through the other two shadows. As the light passed through them, their forms dissolved, their anguish echoing in the contortions of their expressions and the distant sounding screams as they vanished entirely. Jessi and Blaine both dropped to the ground, and Jessi winced as she landed painfully on her side, but she could hardly even pay that any mind. She was busy watching Ray's advance towards Facilier, holding the flickering flame out in front of her like it was a loaded gun, her stride more confident and her face full of nothing but triumphant rage. She wondered if Ray had known it would work to begin with. Her chest swelled with some sort of emotion she couldn't place. Maybe it was pride.

On the ground next to her, John watched the remaining traces of shadow vanish into the night with a furrowed brow. "She didn't give her fire," he said under his breath, and Jessi looked sidelong at him, not sure what he was talking about. He glanced back at her, oddly proud. "She gave her light." They both looked back, watching in frozen silence as the advanced upon the shadowy villain. "Ain't that clever."

It was, Jessi agreed, and perhaps she should have expected such a gesture from someone as wise as Mama Odie. Of course she would know what she had given her. But it was more clever of Ray to have figured it out. To realize that the shadows that every kid fretted over at night could be defeated by something so small.

"I'm not scared of you," Ray said, "'cause now I can _fight_ you. And I really, _really_ want you to leave me and my friends alone."

"Whoa now, h-h-hold on," Facilier raised his hands, backing up as well as he could manage, the silhouette of his spindly legs trembling as he pressed his incorporeal form against a large tree. "Let's not be hasty! I'm sure we can work something out to- to benefit the both of us, wouldn't you agree?"

"Nah," said Ray. She knew full well she had him cornered, and she watched the flame with indifference. Smug kid, thought Jessi. She was honestly kind of impressed. Facilier, on the other hand, hadn't wavered from desperate bargaining.

"I'm just a pawn in this!" he protested. "Don't shoot the messenger!"

"I've seen the movie," Ray frowned at him without wavering. "Don't act like you're not a bad guy."

"W-wait! What's that… that… that hero thing! You folks love the moral high ground." Facilier snapped his fingers, though Jessi wasn't sure how that worked, trying to jog his memory. "You can't kill me!"

For barely even a split-second, Ray glanced over her shoulder, looking at something next to Jessi, and then she turned back.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Simple," he spread his hands out, as though it were obvious. "You can't afford to have something like that on your conscience and we both know it."

"I don't think you're in any position to decide what is and isn't a matter of conscience," John snapped at him, emboldened enough to speak up.

The shadow laughed, though it bordered on hysterical, and gestured at Ray frantically. "Oh, and she is?"

"As a matter of fact, yes! More than you are."

Ray looked back at him again with a startled sort of smile, and Jessi realized she'd glanced at John the first time, too. This time when she turned to face Facilier she was far more resolute.

"I think," she said, "that the right thing to do is to make sure you can't hurt anybody anymore. And I don't want anybody else to be scared the way I was."

That seemed very final. Ray took a couple steps forward, lighter extended, and they all watched in silence as the small circle of light enveloped enough of the shadow's form to bleed the darkness away from it. The final traces of him drifted upwards, same as the other shadows, and the entire camp had seemingly forgotten how to make any sort of noise.

A couple of seconds passed before anyone said anything.

"He's not really dead," Ray said, looking at the light. She frowned at Jessi over her shoulder. "If the other shadows came back even after the movie then he will, too. I think that's just how it works here." She looked back to the tree.

Jessi and John exchanged a glance. Jessi was sure she was right, but he was gone for the moment, and it felt like a great relief nonetheless.

"That was very brave of you," John told Ray.

Ray hesitated, and then nodded lightly in agreement. Though she didn't quite smile, her expression was a bit brighter. "I really didn't feel scared anymore. I was just super mad." She looked down at the lighter, clicking it off. "But I still don't think I was wrong. I was _right_ to be mad." She paused, and then tucked the lighter into her pocket. "He was really dumb."

John chuckled. "He was." He stood and went over to offer the stunned Blaine a hand, pulling him to his feet. Both of their forearms were covered in mud, which Blaine looked absolutely horrified about. Other than that, he was surprisingly okay after that whole fiasco. Or at least he wasn't visibly traumatized.

Jessi finally found her tongue, standing up slowly and brushing off her dress, which was completely soaked through with mud by now. "Well… now you can say that you're the first person in the group to beat a Disney villain, so. Check that off your bucket list."

"I'm thirteen!" Ray said. "I don't have a bucket list!"

"No better time to start one," Jessi shrugged. She opened up the bag, pulling out the journal and tossing it to Ray, who fumbled to catch it.

She looked at the journal in her hands for a couple of seconds, and then opened it to a blank page. "Y'know, that reminds me. I've been thinking," Ray said. "We've totally had our butts kicked enough to have earned a team name."

Jessi arched an eyebrow at her, busying herself with dusting herself off as the others got their bearings. "Care to elaborate?"

"Everybody knows that once you and your friends have gotten beat up a bunch of times you become a team," Ray said. "It's a thing in every movie ever."

"I don't think we'll be able to agree on a team name," Jessi said honestly. Surprisingly, she couldn't argue that they were friends now.

"That's okay! I'll think of one for us. How do we feel about Team Green?"

"But you're the only one wearing green," John pointed out.

"It doesn't have to be literal! Blaine loves green," Ray said. "'Cause he's rich. And our mascot is Kermit Junior-"

"He's not even here anymore," Jessi protested.

"He's here in spirit! And John-" Ray paused, pursing her lips, and then flipped to another page of the book. She looked something over, added something to it in a quick scrawl, and then looked back at him with a resolute nod and a quirked grin. "I just think it fits you."

He didn't seem certain of how to respond to that. "Well… thanks," he said slowly. "I think…"

"Jessi… um, you actually don't really fit into the pattern yet," Ray turned to her apologetically, and then shrugged. "But three out of four is good enough!"

"Hold on, we never actually decided on this," Jessi argued, and then realized that she had no reason to be arguing about something this arbitrary anyhow. "We don't even need a team name."

"We don't _need_ one," Ray agreed, "but we really want one."

" _You_ really want one." Once she was certain Blaine and John were both up on their feet and ready to go, Jessi turned with a sigh to start walking out of the clearing.

Ray didn't quite get the chance to respond. Before they could even think of heading out- they all knew now the importance of hurrying to make it to the town- their attention was caught by another series of loud crashes coming from the brushes on the far side of the clearing, steadily growing more prominent.

Not this again, Jessi thought.

"Ray," she said under her breath, and Ray already had her lighter pulled out. She thought it was sort of funny, or it would have been any other time- leaving a kid to defend all of them- but the fact of the matter was that after that last display she couldn't argue with the results. It _was_ sort of disappointing, on the other hand, that they had to go through this again so soon. Diminished the victory, really-

But rather than a shadow bursting out of the brush, instead there was… an alligator.

Yeah, that was definitely an alligator, though it stood up on two legs. Jessi scrambled backwards a couple of feet, eyes wide. She did _not_ come all the way here through two different Disney villains just to get mauled by a gator. She'd take the shadows again, now that she thought about it, at least they could be beaten. "Holy-"

Even Ray had taken several steps backwards, and Jessi couldn't blame her because really a lighter wouldn't be any use against a gator (she wasn't even sure that anything would), but John, of all people, didn't even flinch. Jessi had half a mind to stop and pull him back, but as she watched she realized it almost seemed like he was genuinely listening to the frantic growling noises coming from the animal. He nodded his head occasionally, as if the nonsense was deeply interesting.

She glanced over her shoulder at the other two as this carried on for several seconds without any sign of John getting attacked. Blaine looked either disgusted or bewildered, which was about par for the course. At least she knew she wasn't hallucinating it.

"Oh!" John said suddenly, and Jessi gave him a strange look as he turned back to the rest of them with a smile, though he did falter for a moment beforehand. It was almost as if he was confused about why they'd bothered to back up. Jessi was suddenly unsure that he had any concept of survival. "Well, how about that! He says his name's Louis, and he can show us a shortcut back to town."

They were silent for a couple of seconds. Blaine made a face. "You understood that."

John's smile faltered as he took note of the confusion on their faces. "Didn't you?"

"No," Ray sounded disappointed. "It sounded like gator noises. How come I can't talk to animals?"

John looked back to Louis, and despite the rest of them not being able to understand him the gesture he made was very clear in its meaning. He shrugged.

"Hm," John said with a frown. "That _is_ strange." He turned back to Jessi. "But it isn't entirely unheard of, around these parts."

Jessi rubbed her temples, her brain still not quite out of the 'holy crap, a gator' stage and ready to deal with whatever all of this was. "I guess not. I mean, there's magic here. People getting turned into animals. Animals getting turned into people."

"Or maybe he's just a Disney princess," Blaine supplied dryly, and Jessi surprised herself by snorting at the comment.

Louis said something again, not nearly as interested in the conversation as the rest of them, and John hesitated for a second before nodding.

"He's right, we can talk more when we get to the city. We shouldn't be out here when the shadows could be back."

"You can't possibly tell me you're just _fine_ with this," Jessi said.

He furrowed his brow. "Fine with what?"

"You're talking to a gator!"

"I... thought it was normal," he admitted. "Understanding animals. I didn't know you folks couldn't."

She shook her head. "I feel like I've said this every day for the last week or so," she said, "but this has been the weirdest day of my entire life. Wait, how have you never mentioned this before?"

"It never came up before," he said.

"A giant bird attacked us."

"Yes, and certainly didn't try to engage in conversation while it was doing so."

Jessi crossed her arms. Fair point, she guessed. "How'd he even know we were out here?"

John looked at Louis. "Mama Odie," he answered after a brief exchange.

"Seriously? She couldn't come out here and help us herself?"

"Well-"

"And he's late," she pointed out further.

"Jessiiii," Ray whined, "can this wait? I want to leave."

Grudgingly, Jessi figured that, yeah, they'd been through more than enough to warrant that level of unease with the swamp. And there was no point in looking a gift horse (gator?) in the mouth. She sighed, gesturing with an arm for Louis to lead the way. "Alright," she said. "Fine. Fair point. Let's go work this out somewhere less…"

"Muddy," Blaine supplied. The five of them picked their way out of the brush surrounding the clearing, looking over their shoulders instinctively as they departed.

"I was going to say terrifying, but... yeah."

* * *

AN: Good pacing? Never heard of it.

Alternate quote for the chapter: "Heroes don't send kids to do the job unless they're little tanks. And most kids are, for some unknown reason, ten times stronger than adult heroes. If that was a four year old playing with a kitten out there, I'd offer her your dead body just to be on the safe side."

A mere few days after my previous notice, the admin posted on twitter that the bug had been patched and they were running subsequent security checks. I'm glad! I just didn't want to post another pointless update so soon, so I decided to finish this chapter first. But I'm still going to keep posting them subsequently on ao3 and deviantart, in case you like either of those sites more than here. There's only one (maybe two?) chapter(s) up on each site currently, because I'm a fool and haven't edited the others yet, but once I do (if I ever catch up to my nano word goal) I'll post them asap.

Review responses (for both the last chapter and the previous notice):

JOHNHAMMOND1993: On ao3, the work number is 16397363. That means for the URL you're going to want to put (dash) works (dash) 16397363 to find it. Although, as I mentioned, it's not fully posted yet. But no worries, I'm not abandoning this any time soon. I have a lot of investment in this project and want to power through, especially since I'm so far (this is the most I've written on any story before)!

Chirithy564: Mags and Forrest are some of my favorite OCs and I'm really looking forward to their roles in the story, even if they only take background roles (and, for the moment, largely just appear during interludes). Honestly, I'm not sure yet if she and Ray will meet up or in what capacity, but if they did she would totally try to take Ray under her wing. She has no qualms with teaching kids to wield greatswords as long as they prove to be capable of handling it without whining (which is really her problem with Taran, he's big on complaining). And Clancy's been through a lot at the moment, and Merlin is sort of an overbearing teacher (for good reason). But physically, she's fine, and both of them are very focused on finding each other.

In any case, while I'm here I wanted to quickly run over the format of the story, because now I'm much more certain of it and I want y'all to know what to expect. So as established by the last chapter, every tenth chapter is going to serve as an interlude- a chapter in which the point of view is from someone other than Jessi. This will focus on a different character each time. Every fifteen chapters we can expect to change up the focal point of the story- sometimes that means swapping out characters and sometimes it means changing goals. This first goalpost is coming up soon! Thanks for all the continued support and reviews!


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